Herding cats

 

I have heard a lot lately about “Being your true self” Who is that? I am not who I used to be. I am much less aggressive, I am more extroverted and I am less selfish. I still have a long way to go and in fact I am reacquiring some attributes that I previously owned. The more doubt I get out from under the more I start to get some of my mojo back.

                I was thinking about some of the times in my life where I unconsciously stepped up, in a big way. Running track for Manton against Forest Area and smoking everyone in the quarter mile. Mr. Harwick the track coach for Forest Area couldn’t believe it because I was better than his perception of me. The last football practice for Manton when Coach Lazowski had me stand on the 50 yard line and told the rest of the team “Live on Lowing” and I ran into the pack instead of running away from them. Standing in the middle of the ring after being pummeled from pillar to post by Jeff Shonavich and then I opened up and attacked his body and shut the home town crowd up.

                When Roy Jones Sr. got mad at me for missing training for three days after losing a fight because of a bad decision by an official. He told me “I am not going to fire you but I am not going to pay you any mind either. These other boys need sparring and you are going to be the meat” I did not like that but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of running me off. By the end of training that night I determined that if anyone was going to be the meat, it wasn’t going to be me. From that day on, I pushed myself past the point of normalcy. I was relentless. That is when learned what it took to be a winner.

Checking into BUD/s class 141 and the Master At Arms, Mike Bloom looked through my previous record from BUD/s Class 133 and saw all of the deficiency chits and started challenging me for even being allowed to go back into training. I just looked at him and said “I am just going to have to prove you wrong, now sign my check in sheet”. In Hell Week that second time getting into the water for surf torture and thinking “This isn’t so bad” and then 14 guys got up at once to ring the bell.

Getting off of the canvas after Tony Suggs dropped me with the first punch I hit him with and I got up and committed to going after him all out and that is what happened in a fight that people still talk about. Running full tilt up that runway in Panama carrying 110 lbs of bullets, water and radio while bullets were skipping across the ash fault in front of me. Standing up to my commanding officer, not letting him jump until he renewed his HAPS card, that was hard but I was right.              

Bill Cosby had a party record called “200 miles per hour” on the flip side he talked about how parents talk to their kids. He talks about walking into a grocery store and hearing a mother talking to her kid saying “I am going to beat you within an inch of your life' Imagine that, beating someone to death and stopping that far?” That which does not kill us only makes us stronger. Once you have experienced that thing which you fear the most and survive, anything less than that is nothing. That is who I really am and I like me.

Being congruent, walking a booby trap course, when every something starts taking you in a direction which you naturally wouldn’t go, you need to stop and look around and you will usually find the booby trap. The same thing works in life or dealing with people. When someone does something that doesn’t make sense or is different than what you are accustom to how they would normally act or talk. Something isn’t right. Some where they are compromising. People will always say “You need to compromise” Not on your values or in your beliefs. When that happens, there has been a break in their foundation. Something has changed. It might be good and you will know, when someone quits drinking of comes into a new and stronger faith but you will know too when they go the other direction.

There will be indictors, like a new association or a dramatic crisis in their life. We need to be aware and be available for them, encourage them, point out the right direction for them, give them the answers or at least investigate where they are going. That is what we do for the people we truly care about, leaders don’t just leave it to their flock to keep up and stay in line. In Luke 15:4 Christ said: "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”

                My Junior year of high-school, it was dear season and I didn’t have good enough grades to get a week off to go hunting. I was sitting in Mr. Diotte’s US History class and the snow was coming down heavy. There was about three feet of new snow. I saw a hunter come out to the woods with seven cats following him in a single file line. I was curious and amazed at why he had the cats with him and how he was able to get them to follow him in a single file line. Somebody told me that cats flush out deer but how he got them to follow him in single file still baffled me. Then someone suggested to me that following in the hunter’s footsteps might have been the easiest. That made total sense. Then while trying to build a sales team I would here other leaders describe it as “Herding cats”. It occurred to me that the only way to herd cats is, you have to lead from the front and there has to be no other option.

When the cat’s stray it’s because the path they are on is too long and they are looking for a faster way and we need to be there when they get lost or we will lose them. Sometimes you have to be uncompromising and extremely brave to in order to bring them back. I am thanking God that he made me that way.