​Hanging out with a great friend this past weekend, we started brainstorming around the campfire. Both of us play with words and language. We enjoy delving into how it shapes us.

In the course of the evening, we got around to the current state of the world, and I posed a question to him: What are three words that describe to you how we’ve living these days?
 
It’s a tough one. You have to think about it. What words broadly encompass this landscape that defies definition and has no playbook? How do we navigate?
 
That’s what I was getting at with the question. How do we get from here to there safely? What words are positive and can help society better understand the challenges and see through the haze to a clearer sky down the road.
 
Our first word was “transparency.” Speak the truth. Tell our citizens exactly what is going on to the best of your ability, whether you are in a position of leadership or run a business. Don’t mislead or distort.

Transparency implies you can see through something. By definition, let’s provide information that everyone understands and can access.
 
The second word we came up with was “pivot.” This one focuses how we’ve changed the past few months, and will continue to have to change in the months ahead as issues surrounding Covid-19 play out.
 
We must adapt to circumstances. We must pivot. We may be heading in one direction and suddenly stop. What’s next? Do you turn right? Do you reverse direction?
 
Individually and collectively we’re going to be doing a lot of pivoting in the coming months and we need to mentally and psychologically prepare ourselves for this. There is no map. There is no core strategy. Things will change, and often quickly, and it may confuse us. To survive and thrive, be prepared to pivot quickly.

Finally, there is “possibilities.” This was my buddy’s favorite, and actually became mine as well during our conversation. As he put it, “there are always possibilities available.”
 
It’s a simple concept he put forth. Whether in dark or evil days, us humans still face choices and can make decisions to improve our lot, or we can sag into marsh.
 
What keeps us going, ignites our souls, is the endless possibilities open to how we can solve some of the inconveniences and problems posed by the virus. We have choices. We can be creative. We can learn from incidents as our responses develop to different situations and be smart about how we move forward.

There are possibilities to build new businesses. There are possibilities to reduce traffic and lighten our worldwide carbon emissions. There are possibilities to learn from other businesses or countries regarding how they are finding success.

The key is to remain open. Don’t circle your personal wagon. Listen with an active mind to experts presenting solid information and think through what you can do to make things better. Those are your possibilities.
 
Embrace transparency, pivot as necessary and see the possibilities for a better tomorrow. Three words that say at lot. What are your three?

​There’s a story I’ve told each of our three adult children more than once. The point is that each generation has unique challenges. The world has ALWAYS been a dangerous place.

Go back to the caveman, and you have to wonder from our point in history today, how did they survive the wild beast attacks, feed themselves daily and propagate the species? But they did it. They persevered.
 
There’s a lot to be said for perseverance. We tend to forget that.
 
With all the modern amenities we have to simplify our lives and make them easier, it becomes harder and harder to look back and actually understand what it was to live like through previous generations. How the heck did you live without a washer and drier? You mean there was only black and white TV when you grew up? Automatic dishwashers didn’t start becoming commonplace in households until the 1970s. And don’t even get me started on life before the Internet.
 
The point is, we tend not to look back on progress. We live with the progress and we expect progress. But progress doesn’t always follow an expected or easily mapped path. It jumps around and suddenly pops out and surprises you.

Back to our adult kids: I reinforce with them stories about our human inventiveness when I find articles that solve some of the more significant global problems we face today. I think it’s important to recognize there are millions of people in the world looking to solve some of our seemingly intractable problems. And I hopefully make a point to them that they can choose to be part of those solutions. That it will take good people for us to clean up some of the mess humans have made. But it can be done.
 
Our kids’ generation gives me great hope. It seems they get a lot of criticism. What I see is a large number of educated young adults in their 20s who have information and education at their fingertips to improve the world, bring us together, and that gives me hope.
 
Other things do as well. Sometimes it’s driving by a cornfield that gives me positive thoughts about the future.

This past weekend, for example, my wife and I drove up to Door County, Wisconsin to do some social distancing hiking with my younger brother and his wife. I took the leisure drive, getting rerouted because of construction to Podunk America.

Bam, there in the cornfield, way up north, a long row of solar panels being installed. Then a whole cornfield of solar panels, then another whole cornfield. Row after row after row. That gave me hope.

I beamed. I thought about the younger generation in the world and what is being done to create sustainable non-emission electricity and I grew more hopeful.
 
There are always human problems. They change with each generation. Some are more complex today due to technologies we employ. And that may mean more complicated solutions requiring sustained commitment for the good of our society and the world.
 
With hope and drive, we will find those solutions. They will not be perfect. That is part of our quest. Keep growing, keep searching because our species is designed to problem-solve.
 
As long was we keep that in mind and use our ingenuity, creativity, intelligence and drive, there will be hope.

​ 
With all the rankings of restaurants online, it’s still fun to go back through your memory banks to find the places you’ve enjoyed the most. Pizza is something people love to argue about. Who makes the best crust? How are the spices? Deep dish or thin? Does it have the proper crispiness?
 
There are multiple variables we consider when thinking about where we got the best pizza of our lives. Interestingly, I think our judgements are somewhat influenced by what stage of life we were in when we ate that pizza. For example, it’s probably hard to beat the very best pizza you had, because if you consumed it when you were a kid, your taste buds probably got way more involved in ranking it highly than if you had your first pizza slice at age 85. Just sayin’.
 
One of the best pizza’s I remember is Binovi’s (who the heck knows if that spelling is correct), a short drive from our home in New Jersey where our family grew up. Our dad would drive over and have a beer in a paper cup and bring it home in a white box, strictly a basic large cheese. It bubbled and the cheese/tomato sauce mixture was like artwork, crusted and gooey in a perfect combination. It was a Sunday night treat that remains in the memory banks to this day.
 
During high school, after a group of buddies went to a basketball or football game, the local hangout was Romito’s in Kankakee, IL. The sausage pizza was the best, crisp crust, cut in squares so us hungry teenagers could inhale chunks more quickly. Sadly, it no longer exists, but when I return to visit friends, another great pizza place is where we go: Sammy’s.
 
Sammy’s has a story. I don’t remember it. But several friends do, and they like to remind me of it. During high school, we came in one night to get pizza and the waitress got angry with me. It seems someone had walked out on their bill with her recently and she thought I was one of the culprits. “YOU ARE ON THAT BOWLING TEAM, AREN’T YOU?,” my friends have recounted she yelled at me, accusing me of cheating her on the bill.
 
I don’t remember the story at all, but my friends sure love to laugh in retelling it. Their pizza has achieved such a level of perfection, that I make Sammy’s a stop when I come back to visit. That says it all. Sausage and cheese. Sometimes I’ll add onions.
 
Are you a Papa Murphy’s fan? If not, you should be. They have a couple of special pies. One has become our go-to the past couple of years: A white cheddar veggie option that drizzles juices off it, and has artichokes as a signature ingredient. It makes you feel righteous for hammering four slices. “Mom, I ate my vegetables.”
 
College brought deep dish front and center, with two awesome places in Champaign, IL, Garcias and Papa Dels. Not sure either survive today.
 
In Pennsylvania, our kids got their first taste, at Guiardano’s, and the all-meat version we ordered is one of the best ever.
 
Does where you live and when you lived there shape your pizza memories? I’m not sure. But it certainly is fun to think back on the great tastes that make you want to return to the old haunts.

​ 
No one teaches you this. When you start a new job, you need to learn how to say, “Get it outta here!”
 
What’s that mean? It means knowing when and how to rid yourself of crap. What is it that you “don’t” need to know or do? What is useless? What is critically important?
 
Learning a new position is always about growth. You must pick new things up. There can be multiple details. There are processes and systems you have to pick up and master to be successful.

Typically, we go through some form of training. On top of that, you repeat tasks. Through repetition, you pick things up. Get it wrong and redo it, and that imprints in your brain better. Some things you’ll get immediately because it’s in your wheelhouse and those types of items are not difficult. You know and understand them, and perhaps even become elite because it plays to your strengths.
 
The struggle is often more along the lines of knowing what to get rid of -- what “NOT” to focus on, what to eliminate. Get it outta here.
 
We aren’t taught how to deal with that. The manager doesn’t tell you when you’re hired, “You really don’t need to worry about this. This is BS.” Instead, typically, everything is proposed as important.

And we all know that’s not the case. Some things are way more important than others. Your business cares about very specific results. Sometimes they care too much about every detail regarding how you got to the results. Those can be discarded (though they may want you to capture all those details, which is a whole other story). How do you do this to improve performance?
 
I really don’t think there’s a better teacher than experience. One way to figure this out is to talk with others (a coworker or boss) and ask, “You seem to have a way better handle on this than me. What can I eliminate on my plate to better focus on those key results?”
 
Another way is to journal what you do on a daily or weekly basis, and note what is working and what is not. That may seem like another task with no value. It’s actually the opposite. It’s a simple thing with tons of value.
 
What you’re looking to eliminate or “stop doing” are the inconsequential things that don’t matter to your professional bottom line. What wastes my time? What doesn’t matter to the goal?
 
It’s hard sometimes to get around inconsequential or non-productive duties if you work in an environment that pushes you down a detailed path. You may need to navigate gently to get rid of something that’s touted as important. Then your challenge is how to diplomatically get around it -- a challenge in and of itself.
 
We get new tasks, projects, goals, timelines dumped on us all the time in our jobs. There is little attention given to “what are you taking off my plate if you expect me to add all these additional duties to my daily to-do list?” The answer is “get it outta here.” Figure out the details on what’s going to best improve your productive mindset, and you’ll be a sought after motivational speaker.