Ken Fite

I never thought I would become a writer.

I wrote my first book Coffee Hacker last June as a bucket list kind of thing… something I thought I would check off the list and then move on to the next goal. What I found was that I loved writing.

Within minutes of publishing that first book, someone bought it. I couldn’t believe it – someone out there was reading the words that I had written, probably with a better cup of coffee in their hand.

I was hooked.

I wrote four more books last year, which meant that I was coming out with a new book about every 5 weeks. It was crazy. I considered growing a writer’s beard and buying a pet cat. I was on a roll.

But when the new year rolled around, I started to become unfocused. I began doing more things that resembled work and spent less time doing the hard work of writing. In short, I just got lazy.

And there was a problem – I had already promised myself that I would write more books this year.

You’ve likely made promises to yourself that you still need to keep, too. Maybe it’s going back to school to finally get a degree. Maybe it’s saying No more often to spend more time with the kids.

We tell ourselves that we’ll accomplish our goals someday but someday can’t be found on a calendar. Someday doesn’t exist. When we tell ourselves Someday, we’re really lying to ourselves.

Would you trust someone who repeatedly lied to you?

Of course not. We karate chop those people in the neck. We unfriend them on Facebook and if they call, we tap on ignore. But what about when we realize that we’ve lied to ourselves?

I’ve done a little reading on self-promises. Philosophers think that there’s no such thing as a self-promise… because the agent (you and me) cannot be the promisor and the promisee at the same time because we can release ourselves from a self-promise at will. In other words, self-promises don’t really count because we can always let ourselves off the hook when things become too hard.

I don’t buy it. I know that when I don’t follow through with reaching the goals I’ve set for myself, it gnaws at me like an uneaten bowl of salsa. It’s always there in the back of my mind as an unresolved commitment that I told myself I would honor but didn’t. And I know from experience that when I start to keep the little promises that I’ve made I begin keeping the bigger ones, too.

A funny thing happens when we start keeping promises to ourselves. We become unstoppable. We start to believe ourselves when we say things like I’m going for a run today.

Yesterday I finished writing my 6th book. It took me five months… much longer than it should have… but I finished it. I can’t wait to tell you when it’s published and ready for the world to read.

And today I started writing my 7th. I promised myself that I would write more books this year and I want to honor that promise. Even when the academics say it shouldn’t matter, it matters to me.

So send in that application to get the degree you’ve always wanted. Cancel that appointment and make plans to have a special date with the kids. Write that book. Keep your promises to yourself.

Someday is today.

One of my favorite movies as a kid was Pinocchio, the animated Disney film about a wooden marionette created by a woodworker named Geppetto. I’m sure you’ve seen it many times over the years, just like me. I was reminded of the film after looking for a classic movie that I could show my kids. In the film, after Geppetto finishes creating Pinocchio, he wishes upon a star that Pinocchio would one day become a real boy.

It’s the next part that I remember most. After Geppetto goes to sleep, the Blue Fairy visits Pinocchio and tells him that if he does three things, if he can prove himself to brave, truthful, and unselfish, his dream – and Gepetto’s wish – will one day come true.

These character traits were essential to experiencing a transformation then as they are now:

1. Be brave.
2. Be truthful.
3. Be unselfish.

Life is full of risks. Every day we waste time worrying about doing the things that scare us instead of taking those things on directly. We can all be braver than we are but we like to play it safe. I’ve written before that there is no growth in the comfort zone and there is no comfort in the growth zone. The real magic happens when we leave our comfort zone. To see the light at the end of the tunnel, we have to walk through the darkness. If we are never afraid, we can never be brave.

What’s always struck me about this movie is that just like in real life, if we focus on being brave, truthful, and unselfish, if we focus on following all of the rules all of the time, we will fail.

We are human. We will make mistakes. Focusing on our failures is a great way to stop any forward progress. But if we focus on what we want to become instead of what we’re not, we will arrive.

It’s called the Pinocchio Effect. Pinocchio wanted to become a real boy more than anything, and he knew what he needed to do to get there. But it was still hard for him. There were unsavory characters that he met along the way that encouraged him to lie and do bad things. He skipped school. He met a weirdo cat that deceived him. He befriended a kid that turned into a donkey.

Thank God life isn’t that psychedelic but it can be just as difficult. In the end, after failing time and again, Pinocchio finally focused on the right thing. That’s how it works – we become what we think. He was convinced that he would be a real boy one day. And in the end, when he finally stopped focusing on living up to the rules, when he changed his mindset, that’s what he became.

Stop focusing on what you’re not and start seeing yourself as the person you want to become. From this day forward, tell yourself who you are. With the right focus, amazing things can happen.

Be brave. Be truthful. Be unselfish. But above all, be aware of what you focus your thoughts on.

That’s who you will become.

We’re all afraid of something. We fear things like public speaking, heights, flying, spiders, clowns, and sometimes going to the dentist. And our fears often change as we grow older. My two-year-old is scared of thunder yet is fearless when he wants his M&M yogurt. Trust me, you don’t want to be anywhere near him when he wants his yogurt.

We also fear much more important things in our lives. A promotion at work that we’re thinking about going for. A new opportunity across the country that would mean starting all over.

The big things in our lives that we fear don’t have to be as dramatic as a job change or a move. It can be an important conversation with someone that we don’t feel like we’re prepared to have.

It’s usually at this moment, when we start dreaming about doing something big with our lives, or taking a leap of faith, that Fear asks the question that he loves to ask: Who are you to do that?

Fear’s good at asking that question. I hate that guy. He’s a wrecker of dreams and he loves to tell us when we’re getting close to crossing the line. Even when it’s a dream we’ve had for years.

When I was eight years old, my parents bought me a microphone for Christmas. It wasn’t just any microphone – it was a battery powered wireless microphone that when tuned to the right frequency on the FM dial, I could hear my voice come out of the speakers like I was on the radio. It was the best gift ever. I spent hours playing records and talking in between them, pretending to be a DJ.

It was no surprise when a few years later in high school, I started to think about riding my bike down to my favorite radio station, 101.1 WJRR, to ask for a job. I spent a lot of time working up the courage to go. Fear kept asking me, Who are you to do that? And for a while, I believed him.

I was a nobody. I wouldn’t be taken seriously.

Who takes a guy who parks his bike at the curb to apply for a job seriously?

One day, I decided to go for it. I rode my bike to the radio station and after a quick stop at the 7-Eleven for a pack of Now and Laters, I parked my bike and walked in. The receptionist, whose job responsibilities included keeping riff raff like me away from the Talent, politely told me to go away.

So I did. Fear was right and Fear had won. But I knew that I was supposed to be on the radio and that I was supposed to work at that radio station, so I went back. After a heavy sigh, I was told to go get experience at a smaller station and maybe, if I was lucky, one day I would have a shot.

After high school, I got a job on the air at my college radio station. I went on to DJ at nine other radio stations until one day, many years later, I finally got a call from WJRR who needed a new DJ. After years of Fear whispering in my ear, Who are you to do that? I finally got to show him.

In other words, I gave Fear an uppercut to the chin. It took me a while, but I proved him wrong.

Radio was my passion. At least, it was at the time. Although that dream ended years ago, what I’ve found is that I wasn’t in love with radio, I was in love with broadcasting. Maybe that’s why I write.

What do you fear? What big dreams do you have but aren’t taking any action on because you don’t believe that you’re able to do something about them? It’s time to dream big. It’s time to be brave.

The thing about Fear is that he never goes away for good. Fear has come back for a visit because he knows I have big dreams for my writing. And he’s shown up to make sure that doesn’t happen.

So today, I’m going to take my writing to a new level. I’m going to do the thing that Fear doesn’t think I should do or could do. I won’t tell you what that thing is. That’s between Fear and me.

Pressure is a double-edged sword. Too much pressure and we get stressed out and become paralyzed with fear, unable to make a move because we don’t know where to even begin. Too little pressure and life has no excitement, nothing to try to accomplish, and we find ourselves with no real goals to reach for, sitting on the couch watching back-to-back episodes of Judge Judy.

Photo credit: Fe Ilya (Creative Commons)

Our lives are so busy, stressful, and full of pressure that sometimes we just don’t know how we’re going to make it through the day, let alone how we’re going to save the day – or save ourselves. There’s emails, meetings, projects, issues, and then there’s kids to take care of. It’s overwhelming.

Pressure isn’t always a bad thing. We often view it as something to be avoided and eliminated from our lives entirely, but that’s the wrong way to think about it. Pressure can be used for good.

We can either use pressure as an excuse or as the reason to make a difference. Its a choice. Either path can be taken but each one leads to a very different ending.

Even Superman needed pressure. Without it, he was just Clark Kent. As Bill Phillips has said, Superman was only super when there was pressure. It was required for him to rise to the occasion. Had he always been under pressure, he would have walked around in a cape and spandex all of the time and that would have been a little weird, especially for an office job. It would have also been exhausting. With no pressure, Clark would never be Superman or use his gifts to make a difference. Clark’s outfit was the default, Superman’s was the exception. He knew when to switch.

The reality is that Superman was real and the Clark Kent persona was created to hide in plain sight. How many of us are hiding in plain sight, too busy or too paralyzed with fear to break out?

I first read Phillips’s book Body for Life ten years ago. I had just proposed to Missy and I wanted to get in the best shape of my life. I completed Phillips’s twelve week challenge and got in great shape. Then I got married, had kids, and started using the excuse of being too busy to exercise.

I’m tired of my excuses. I’m tired of telling myself that I’ll get back in shape one day, just not today. I’m tired of saving the day but never saving myself. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.

What about you – what have you been avoiding? When will you decide that it’s time to do something about it… that it’s time to take off the Clark Kent glasses and take action on your goals?

You’ll know what your kryptonite is if you ask yourself what you’ve been avoiding. Exercise is mine. So I’ve decided to start a new twelve week challenge. Not someday but today.

It’s the thing that I don’t want to do. And that’s why I know that I have to do it.

A friend of mine asked if my older son and I wanted to join him and his kids at a “Dad and Me” camp this weekend. He told me how much fun the kids would have and all of the different kinds of activities dads can do with their children to connect with each other and with God. I was nice enough and told him I’d think about it, but my real answer, the one I didn’t say out loud, was No.

Photo credit: Martin Cathrae (Creative Commons)

I thought about it for a few days. I made up some pretty good excuses not to go. It was too short of a notice, if only I had known about it sooner. It was too far away from home. It would cost money.

But if I’m honest with myself, the real reason that I decided in my head to say No was because sometimes I just don’t know how to be a dad.

Sure, I know how to discipline my boys, how to give them piggy-back rides, make them meals, tuck them in at night, and do typical father type stuff. But I don’t know how to do dad stuff.

The last time I went fishing, I was seven years old and I accidentally hooked one of my friends in the head when I released the line too early during a backwards cast, scarring both of us for life. And the last time I went canoeing, I was ten years old at my dad’s company picnic sitting with him inside a canoe at the lake and I had the brilliant idea to stand up, causing both of us to tip over.

I’ll never forget the image of him in shock, sinking slowly, beer in hand. Later, we laughed about it.

Still, as dangerous as it is to invite me to any kind of camp, I’m starting to believe that the way you become a dad is the same way that you become a writer or anything else you want to get better at.

You just do it.

If you want to write, you read books on writing, you learn as much as you can about the craft before you try your hand at it. But at some point, you have to sit down at the blank screen with the blinking cursor and you have to write. You make a lot of mistakes at first. You realize that some days your writing will be amazing and something that you want to share with the world.

Other days, your writing will be so terrible that after writing what you thought was good material, you’ll decide later that it can’t see the light of day and you pray that you don’t have a wreck on the way home so you can trash what you’ve written before anyone finds it.

You start out not really knowing what to write about or how to write it, but you keep showing up and you try your best and eventually, you find your way. I think that’s also how you become a dad.

So today I’m at the Dad and Me camp. I’ll avoid doing any fishing, for the safety of others.

I’m clicking on publish and I’m setting out to enjoy the day as a dad with his boy. And if my son stands up in our canoe and tips us over, I’ll do the same thing my dad did. We’ll laugh about it.

Should we take the camera to the Easter egg hunt? It’s the question my wife asks me every year, just minutes before we leave for our church’s annual Easter egg hunt. And I always answer Yes.

But this year when she asked me that same question, I said No. Then I hurried to the car before she could give me the look that she’s famous for and which I try my best to avoid at all costs.

Photo credit: Jamie McCaffrey (Creative Commons)

I didn’t say No because it would be one more thing to keep track of, which would have been a good excuse. And not because I worried that my toddler would get a hold of it with his peanut-buttery slobber fingers that he touches expensive things with. That also would have been a great reason.

I said No because I’m tired of seeing life through a 4 inch screen.

Every year the same thing happens. My boys, along with hundreds of other candy-obsessed little children, line up on the sidewalk next to a field littered with plastic eggs, as we wait on our pastor to turn off the music, turn on the squeaky microphone, and yell On your mark, get set, go!

And every year at that moment I run after them, trying to take pictures on my DSLR camera with my right hand, take a video on my Flip cam with my left hand, and keep the boys inside the frame on both all the while dancing around plastic eggs on the ground that other kids haven’t picked up yet so I don’t step on them, break them, and make anyone cry. I’ve become quite good at it.

The problem is, by concentrating so hard to capture the moment, I miss the moment.

Sure I go back later to see the pictures and watch the videos, like a grandparent across the country might do on Facebook. But I don’t remember the event. I was there, but I wasn’t really there.

The paradox is that the best memories are rarely captured on a device.

I’ll never forget the moment I proposed to my wife and the look on her face when she said Yes as I knelt on bended knee under the Navy Pier fireworks in Chicago.

Or the moment my kids were born and we got to see these little ones we loved but hadn’t met yet.

Or my parent’s smile when I finally found them in the crowd after my college graduation.

I would never trade those memories for anything.

But that’s what we do when we focus on capturing the moment instead of living the moment.

Now, Missy did ask me again to take some pictures once we got there. I used my iPhone to get a few great shots of the boys at the beginning of the hunt.

Then I put the phone in my pocket and enjoyed seeing my boys have fun.

Not through a 4 inch screen, but in real life. I got to truly see the joy in finding a silly plastic egg and laugh every time they bent down to pick up another one while their already overflowing basket emptied out. I enjoyed it the way the kids’ grandparents would have rather experienced it, instead of through a video that they would only be able to like and comment on through Facebook.

I was there. And I was there.

And out of all of the Easter egg hunts we’ve gone to with the boys, this is the one I’ll remember.

How many opportunities are we going to miss to do something extraordinary with our lives?

Photo credit: Joel Bombardier (Creative Commons)

A few weeks ago I was playing a game with my six-year-old son Kyle. This was a rare event – because he’s six, he’d much rather wrestle with me, color with his crayons, ride his bike, or play with his little brother. But for a little while, we played together. It was so much fun. At first.

I explained how the game worked. I explained that we would take turns and after I went, he’d go next. And like most six-year-olds, he soon got distracted. I had to keep reminding him It’s your turn.

This went on for a while. As I became a little frustrated with having to keep reminding him that it was his turn, I started to think about all of the games I’ve played were I also wasn’t paying attention. Then I realized that when it comes to playing games, there’s two kinds of people in this world:

1. Those who don’t realize it’s their turn and
2. Those who can’t wait for it to be their turn

And it’s not just the games we play with our friends and family. This applies to the game of life, too.

Those who don’t realize that it’s their turn.

Some will never realize that it’s their turn. They’d much rather complain about their life and blame others. The world is unfair. Their job is unfair. Their landlord is unfair. Life is unfair. They had a chance once, when they were younger maybe, but they missed it and they think they’ll never be given another shot. But they do have that second chance – right now – they just don’t realize it. Every day they choose to go to a job that they hate in a career that’s dead or dying or they stay in a relationship that’s not good for them instead of putting in the extra time and effort to find something better. If they only spent the same amount of energy on doing something different instead of complaining, they could actually change their life. But they don’t. It’s not their turn yet, they think.

Those who can’t wait for it to be their turn.

Some can’t wait for their turn. They’re competitive. They don’t just know the hand that they were dealt, but they know everyone else’s as well. While all of the other players are trying to figure out their next move, those waiting for their turn have already played out the next three moves in their head. In life, they’re ready for the next big thing to happen to them. What they don’t realize is that they need to happen to it. They no longer have to wait. News isn’t broken by Brian Williams anymore. It’s broken by anyone who has a Twitter account. There are no more gatekeepers. Those who can’t wait for their turn could change everything today if they tried. They could be game changers. But instead, they wait patiently for it to be their turn and don’t see that it already is.

I don’t know which one of these you are. I don’t know if you’re the super competitive type or if you’re still asleep. But I do know that every day that you choose to do something other than what you feel that you’re called to do, you’re not only stagnant, you’re going in the opposite direction.

It’s time to wake up. It’s your turn and all eyes are on you. Will you make your move?

I’m a Christian. That doesn’t mean I watch Leave It to Beaver marathons or go around saying things like “good golly” all the time, although I did use that phrase the other day. It does mean that I try to be aware of who I allow to influence me and where I spend my time. I’m learning that what I focus on matters if I want to stay on the right path. Motivational speaker Jim Rohn said it best:

You are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with.

A few years ago, I was laying in bed in a hotel room in Omaha, Nebraska. I was on a business trip and trying to get some shuteye before a day full of meetings. So I turned off the light and tried to catch some sleep. Then I remembered that I forgot to brush my teeth. So I got up and that’s when it happened. I broke my toe on the nightstand. Good golly was it painful. It hurt so bad. It was awful.

Later that night, after I laid down again, I could slowly start to see the outline of the nightstand. It was faint at first, but then it became more and more apparent until finally, it was very easy to see.

I thought about all of the walking I’d have to do the next day. How did I not see the nightstand?

I missed it because my eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness. It takes time to adjust. The amount of time that it takes is different for everybody, but eventually, we will all adjust to the dark.

What we don’t often realize is that other things in our lives can become a form of darkness as well and if we’re not careful, our eyes will adjust to them, too. It will be slow. We may not notice it at first. But we will adjust. It could be people who aren’t the best influence on us or TV shows that aren’t very uplifting (not Leave It to Beaver). It could even be “busyness” and always needing to have something to do rather than just enjoying the day with the people you love as if it may be your last.

We need to pay attention to what we surround ourselves with. They affect us more than we realize.

Are you on the right path to becoming the person that you want to be?

Last week I wrote about how feedback is a gift… that when our boss, our parents, our friends, or our spouse provide feedback, we tend to get defensive and discount what they say. I explained how if we want to improve, we need to listen to their words because perception is reality and there is a nugget of truth buried deep inside feedback. I explained that feedback is only a gift if we receive it.

But there’s another danger to be aware of – the danger of being good enough.

When we’re good enough, all we ever hear from others is good job. We get a pat on the back and a tip of the hat. We get the passing grade in class, or a decent annual review at work. We go through our day executing with excellence but we never break a sweat. We feel like we’ve finally made it, we know what we’re doing and we do it well. We’ve arrived and everybody loves us.

Here’s the thing – if all you ever hear from others is good job, you’re not growing. And if you haven’t done something in the last 60 days that puts you completely out of your comfort zone, you’re not on the path to becoming a better version of you.

There’s a song by the band Muse that has the following lyrics:

I’ve had recurring nightmares
That I was loved for who I am
And missed the opportunity
To be a better man

I’ve thought about those words a lot this week. They’ve haunted me. I’ve struggled to accept them. But they are true. As long as I focus on being loved and staying in my safe zone, I’m cheating myself out of being the person that I want to be. That’s a hard pill to swallow. Why put ourselves through discomfort if we don’t have to? Why not just sit back and enjoy the fruit of our labor?

Because there is no growth in the comfort zone and there is no comfort in the growth zone. Unless we do the things that we’re afraid to do, we’ll never reach our full potential. If you don’t have anyone in your life pushing you to get to the next level or to try something different, you’ll need to push yourself. It will be strange. Your family and friends may not understand it. That’s okay, they will.

If everybody loves you, if you’re not being challenged by others or by yourself, it may be time to decide if you’re on the path that you want to be on and if you’re in the danger zone of good enough.