Faith Venture

Bear with me. I have some examples of insufficient preparation and some thoughts for you.

Management of the manufacturing company moved me from a role in manufacturing to one in product development. They thought (wrongly probably) that I was smart but that I required some growing. They threw me into growth positions where it was sort of “sink-or-swim.”

We were a division of a Fortune 50 company. I was assigned first to research capital equipment that we could use to reduce scrap in the manufacturing process. That I did. They they told me that a few senior executives from the Chicago HQ were coming in, and I had to present the request for capital investment. That I did. 

But I was totally unprepared for all the questions that were fired at me. I sort of panicked and mumbled what I could.

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I thought about preparation as I watched the debacle of the US Men’s National Soccer Team v Panama 6/27/24.  Panama is a long-time competitor of the US. Their tactics should be well known. They commit nasty fouls, kicks on the ankles, stepping on feet, and other tactics designed to provoke their opponents.

The US team members should have known that. The coaching staff should have prepared them. Unfortunately, a key player lost his cool, took a swing, and was ejected very early in the game. Now the team had to play an important contest 10 v 11 for 75 minutes.

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I have not watched anything pertaining to a US President on TV since probably 1967 and Lyndon Johnson appearing on TV telling us more “stuff” about the war in VietNam.

So I missed the Biden v Trump “debate” on purpose. It sounds like a gross example of incorrect preparation. I studied the Nixon/Kennedy debate in graduate school many years ago. Surely every political advisor should have studied it. Nixon was a champion debater. He was prepared with debate points. (Unfamiliar with TV, he also famously refused makeup. Turns out when you’re a performer on stage makeup is not feminine, it’s a necessity.) Kennedy never directly answered a question. He riffed off the question to give his message. But he did it so well that he swayed the audience. Reagan was great for finding a pointed follow up observation.

Try this intellectual experiment.

If I’m preparing Biden, I’d have brought in some psychologists to role play how to provoke someone with narcissistic tendencies into a temper tantrum. Facts and figures? No one tunes into TV for those. People want a fight. Journalists want a fight. And journalists also want someone to go down so they can kick them. (OK, maybe I do have an opinion about political journalists.)

(I’m not advising Trump, because I think he cannot be advised. He is who he is. It sounds like he just gave his stump speech. Probably something Biden should have done.)

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I don’t do politics. I like to analyze. Can’t help myself.

My point is for you—those who read my thoughts.

How are you preparing? For your next executive presentation. For your proposal to the non-profit organization board for a new initiative. For a talk with your teenagers.

Are you preparing for the last war, or the next one? Instead of looking internally, have you considered the point of view of the opposition? What will they attack? How can that attack be met or diverted? What questions could come up that I’ll need to answer with a good story?

(Note: I don’t debate politics. That is a rabbit hole leading to nowhere. If you want to discuss practices that enhance our life, that’s where I live these days.)

I must take a break from other thoughts today to acknowledge our 54th anniversary.

Bev and I met in September through a mutual friend, began dating in November, and married the following June. I am such a total geek and nerd that I still don’t know why she said yes. But it worked.

The phrase we learned went like this, “Practice makes perfect.”

That thought misleads us. The practice must be deliberate, intentional. I can’t just pick up my guitar and plunk away at a few chords and call it practice. I discovered 16 finger-picking patterns. I knew maybe three. Deliberate practice involves going through those patterns one-by-one until I master them.

Same with study. You can’t just pick up the Bible or other book, read a few sentences, and call it practice. Or even worship. Or service.

My reading led me to this set of practices uncovered by an organization called Teach for America. They identified these five practices of stellar teachers. These practices can apply to all of us for many of the things we do.

• They set big goals for their students and are perpetually looking for ways to improve their effectiveness.
• They’re obsessed about focusing every minute of classroom time toward student learning.
• They plan exhaustively and purposefully, “working backward from the desired outcome.”
• They work “relentlessly”…”refusing to surrender.”
• They keep students and their families involved in the process.

These first four sound like deliberate practice. “Customers” or “members” can be substituted for “students and their families” for the rest of us.

A hat tip to Cal Newport for starting this thinking.

Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired magazine and author of several good books, offered this advice, “Don’t aim for better ways to do your tasks. Aim for better tasks that you never want to stop doing.”

Where are you doing things that fail to bring joy?

What tasks bring nothing to yours or others well being?

What is the one thing, or the few things, that bring joy to your soul and serve others?

Throw out the meaningless tasks. Focus on what matters.

Yesterday I looked at spiritual practice as a process. Let us consider today and take the thought just a bit further.

Does following Jesus consist of an hour or two on Sunday morning (or, for my Seventh-Day Baptist ancestors, Saturday morning)?

Perhaps it is good enough to just proclaim that one is a Jesus follower? Many people seem to go with that thought. “I said it; that settles it.”

Perhaps we can look at following Jesus in terms of a job. Not something you have to do. Many people take on jobs for the pure enjoyment of the effort and the good product at the end.

Perhaps we should consider following Jesus as a full-time job. We should be kind to everyone we meet. Helpful when we can. Teaching where needed. Praying constantly for joys and concerns.

Some people think that Christianity—following Jesus—is a completed state. You repeat the special prayer (and promise to obey all the rules), and that is it.

While yet a youth, I seemed to believe what I read in the New Testament (well, also much of the Old). Jesus taught me that following him was a way of life. It’s something that took practice.

We called Yoga a practice. You didn’t “come to class”; you came to practice. And one would hope that the students went home and practiced on their own what they learned in class.

Practice means to work at the desired behavior or learning repeatedly over time in order to become proficient.

Some call the spiritual disciplines practices. Things like prayer, study, worship, meditation, fasting, simplicity, service are not end points. They are practices. Repeated they develop those “muscles.” 

Like the Yoga class, we attend church or small groups to reinforce our learning and pick up new ideas and enjoy community. But in the end, it’s a practice. And practice doesn’t stop when we leave the group. Practice is something done repeatedly so that we become proficient—not perfect, but proficient.