Life can sometimes feel like we’re trying to cross an ocean on a kayak. So, we paddle forward. We aren’t always sure where we’re headed, but we just keep paddling. As we paddle forward, we sometimes forget to look up at the horizon and our direction shifts.  Imagine that a personal guide paddles up beside us. This guide simply wants to help us navigate in the right direction and he offers to paddle alongside us for as long as our journey takes. That’s someone we should listen to.

The concept of coaching people was once singularly equated with athletic pursuits. In the 1990′s, coaching emerged as an independent discipline with multiple contexts such as life coaching, career coaching and leadership coaching.  It just makes sense. Coaching is about listening effectively, empathizing and helping a person create clear next steps in life. Coaching is empowered by asking great questions, but great coaching begins by becoming a trusted advocate in the life of another person.   When a genuine friends invest time and energy into meaningful dialogue, serious personal growth can happen.

Personal relationships can encourage us, sustain us and change us.  While coaching is now a widely recognized profession, it’s also something that can be effectively utilized among peers.  In other words, close friends have the unique leverage to mutually encourage and challenge one another towards specific, individual goals. That’s Peer Coaching.  As for leaders, coaching people will define our future, so leaders should embrace the practice with passion and strategy.

Here are three tips to help trusted friends establish a fruitful peer coaching relationship:

Coaching Competencies – Peer Coaches don’t necessarily need an in depth understanding of a friend’s professional responsibilities, but they do need at least a basic understanding.  Some core competencies of an effective Peer Coach are; listening skills, goal-orientation, trustworthiness and analytical thinking.

Relationship Dynamics - To be effective, a Peer Coach must have a genuine spirit. To grow, a coaching recipient must have a humble spirit. The coaching concept is more akin to being a guide than a mentor. Peer Coaches don’t tell, they ask great questions. The key is mutual trust.

Clear Goals – At the outset, the Peer Coaching relationship should begin with goals for each party. I suggest 1-3 goals. Chances are, these goals will get refined during the Peer Coaching relationship. The overarching goals are personal growth for BOTH parties AND the refinement of personal goals and weekly productivity systems.

To unleash your potential, consider establishing a peer coaching relationship!

Family Life really does keep you on your toes, and it calls for some creative energy.   Amy and I put forth a sincere effort to box our Family Life inside of color coded squares on a Google Calendar.  However, we often encounter weeks, and even months, when our calendar gets so far outside-the-lines, it looks more like an abstract work of art than neatly color coded blocks of time.  When a family works together to protect their relational priorities, solutions rarely occur on paper.  I’m a big fan of scheduling well, but a commitment to prioritize family life often seems to happen outside-the-lines.  Spending quality time with family is more of an inspired artsy pursuit than a scheduling pursuit.  Some of life’s best moments seem to involve spontaneity and innovative thinking.

This week, for example, I had an important conference in Atlanta set for Monday through Wednesday.  Amy was gearing up for an above-the-norm work week.  The kids are on Spring Break and deserve to do something fun.  There’s also the orthodontic appointment and soccer practices dispersed here and there throughout the week.  Last, but definitely not least, Amy and I are celebrating our 15th Wedding Anniversary today!  On paper, this week was outside-the-lines in a silly sort of way, but we put our heads and our hearts together to map out a plan that has turned out great!  My oldest, Anna, had a blast attending my conference with me while Amy had a fun time improvising the start of her week with Emily and John Harmon in tow.  Oh yeah,  I came home early from the conference last night because, well, I love my wife and I’m not stupid.

For the past 15 years, Amy and I have been artistic innovators authoring the story of us.  I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  We did some stuff wrong, but we did a lot of stuff right too.  We have learned so much and we can look back and laugh about our early days of married life and starting a family.  We’ve had our share of challenges and more than our share of good times.  We have three great kids.  We’ve started a business and we’ve planted a church.  We’ve traveled.  We’ve made so many friends.  We’ve tried to learn from our mistakes and we’ve persevered by waking up every day with renewed conviction to seek first the kingdom of God, together.  If nothing else, we’ve learned to respond to life with innovative thinking and big faith.

If life were always predictable, it might get boring and I’m not sure how we would ever actually learn anything.  I love to hear stories about people and families that dream big, face down obstacles, innovate and make a difference.  We typically assign innovation to business leaders, inventors and politicians, but I think there’s a much more common context for innovators.  Innovation means authoring new ideas or new concepts to deal with preexisting challenges.  Balancing family life is not a new challenge, but each day brings a new opportunity to take an innovative approach to keeping first things first.  It seems like many of our best weeks are those when we just choose to lean-in to what comes our way and adjust to life with a calm resolve that fosters innovative thinking.

If you live around Middle Georgia, I’m guessing that you didn’t calendar today’s thunderstorms, so it may cause you to adjust your day.  The dark and dreary thunderstorms provide good contrast for an innovative adjustment.  Today would be a great day to deliver Starbucks to a coworker or friend.  Tonight might be a good time to turn off the TV and pull out a board game to play with your family.  Don’t you love it when people embrace the hiccups of life as opportunities for positive innovations?

Have you ever transformed what looked like a bad day or a bad week into a positive experience?  Have you ever observed someone else being a values-driven innovator?

So, you’re having dinner with your family and someone inadvertently spills a glass brimming with a freshly poured beverage.  Those infamous spilled milk moments happen to everyone.  My family has seen more than our share of  spilled milk moments, and each one of us has acted as victim and a perpetrator alike within these moments.  Based on my vast experience with spilling milk, there seems to be the three common types of spills:

• The classic reach spill is most often performed by little ones going after ketchup, restaurant crayons or maybe the pigtail of a sibling.  This spill occurs when a kid gently grazes the top of her glass of milk and a slow-motion, puddling spill ensues.  The milk streams across the table navigating plates and platters towards a waterfall that topples into someone’s lap.  Parents are well trained to simultaneously push-back from the table while leaping up to quickly contain the spill.  However, if this happens in a booth, you could be in trouble unless you’re super nimble.

• The quick recovery spill is when the spiller manages to snag the tipped glass at a 45 degree angle just before total spillage occurs.  This type of spill can save the day, unless the spiller uses a scooping motion which projects a dousing dollop in the direction of an unwitting friend or family member.  The dousing dollop can be brutal if there’s a lot of ice involved.  The dousing dollop has also been known to saturate someone’s meal.  Here you are Mam, try our chocolate milk glazed tenderloin.  You’ll love it!

• The backhand spray spill is that type of spill wherein the spiller, who also happens to talk with his hands, temporary loses his bearings then quickly turns to engage someone in conversation.  While turning and talking, the backhander smacks a glass full of cold beverage sending it 2-4 feet across the table.  The result of the backhand spray spill is like getting sprayed with a water hose to those in the-line-of-fire.  It should be noted that the rare atomic backhand spray spill can occur if the backhander manages to smack a waitress carrying a full platter of glasses.  This is never good.

I have partaken in all the aforementioned scenarios on so many occasions.  At some point, you just have to learn to go with the flow both literally and figuratively.  Don’t cry over spilled milk is perhaps the most used cliche’ in our culture, but it’s actually pretty sound advice if we can learn to apply the underlying principle.  We tend to overplay our mistakes internally instead of learning fast and moving on.  At least I do.  The principle of spilled milk is about learning and developing our character through the inevitable small mishaps of life.

When we spill our milk, we tend to ignore all of the contributing factors and just get upset with ourselves.  It’s important that we keep things in perspective and make adjustments that will prevent the potential major spills of life.  There’s always a lesson to be learned while we’re cleaning up a small mess, and that lesson likely has something to do with avoiding a major spill in the future.  Perhaps the key is to learn as fast as we can, instead of just trying as hard as we can.  Perhaps the key is an earnest pursuit of wisdom.

Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser.  (Proverbs 9:9 TNIV)

Have you witnessed any of the aforementioned types of spills?  Have you yourself perpetrated any memorable spills at restaurants?

Fried Grits Friday posts are about celebrating the simple stuff that warms your heart and cultivates grace in the lives of those closest to us.

I dare you not to smile as you read through these quotes from Buddy The Elf:

“Smiling is my favorite.”

“These toilets are ginormous!”

“He’s an angry elf, he must be from the South Pole.”

“First, we’ll make snow angels for two hours, then we’ll go ice skating, then we’ll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse cookie dough as fast as we can and then, we’ll snuggle.”

Answering the phone… “Buddy The Elf, what’s your favorite color?”

How did you do?  No one in my family was able to make through those quotes without laughing out loud.  When any member of my family laughs, it rejuvenates  me.  When my family laughs together, it’s like a refreshing melody that melts my worries away.  John Harmon (9 years old) and Emily (11 years old) are the primary purveyors of comedic relief at our house.  To be so young, these kids are remarkably quick-witted.  Emily also uses a giggle to punctuate most every sentence that she utters.  Yesterday, I told John Harmon that he should have a healthy after-school-snack.  He quickly retorted, “No problem Dad, Doritos are made with real cheese.”

Laughter is a good thing.  Laughing together with friends and family is a great thing.  When people laugh together, they are relating to one another in the most fundamental of ways.  To laugh together is to celebrate life together.  Life can get serious sometimes and bad things will happen.  Laughter can help sustain us.  Similar to how laughter was portrayed in the Pixar classic, Monsters Inc., we can store it up like energy within our souls and consume it later when we need a boost.  Laughter can help draw people closer and make them stronger.

My family has definitely shared a lot of laughs together.  Our most memorable laughs haven’t been forced, but rather they’ve just flowed from our life together.  When we’re fully engaged with the daily fabric of life, funny stuff just seems to happen.  Our comedic family moments have created some great memories.  Simply having a meal together, or taking a walk together can foster good times and refreshing melodies.

I hope you have the opportunity to laugh out loud this weekend!  Have you overheard a kid say anything funny lately?   Have you shared any good laughs with friends and family lately?   Please post your “comedic moments” below!

Son, you should choose a healthy after-school-snack. "No problem Dad, Doritos are made with real cheese." #parenting

March 10, 2011 9:09 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@jeffreyjeffords

Jeffrey Jeffords

My son’s Spring soccer season kicked off this past Saturday in Warner Robins.   The inaugural games were greeted with a slow, steady rain that made playing conditions a muddy mess.  John Harmon smiled slyly as he arrived for the game and took in the field conditions.  He knew that to be a muddy mess on this day meant the admiration and accolades of all, not parental chagrin.  Since John Harmon often plays goalie, he was excited about diving on balls and slide tackling his opponents in the box.  Though he and his teammates were soaked to the core and stained with mud, they stayed focused on playing the game.

From a spectators perspective, these were less than ideal conditions.  Did I mention that it continued to rain throughout his morning games?  My standard issue Soccer Dad bag chair was effectively retaining a pool of water, so standing was my only option.  The ground was seeping water like an underground pipe had burst below my feet.  I was wearing boots and a rain jacket, but after and hour or so the dampness penetrated my rain gear.   A fellow Soccer Parent observed my plight and offered me an umbrella, but it was too late.  I had reached my saturation point and had resolved myself to simply deal with it and enjoy the game.

I love how kids can teach us about life.  I love that their zest for life and their ability to live in the moment reflects greater truths.  I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the amount of things that I want to accomplish.  I sometimes feel that I have reached my saturation point and have zero mental margin to absorb anything else.   Life seems to dispense unrelenting irony upon us and one of those ironies occurs when we are totally saturated mentally and yet the rain keeps falling.  There is a limit to how much information we can process in a given period of time, much less retain and learn.  The question is; how do we move forward with focus and zeal during the downpours that life inevitably brings?

The kids that I watched play soccer this past weekend were on to something.  Sometimes, life is all about how we play the game instead how much we can accomplish.  The kids that I saw playing soccer in the rain were simply focused on their role in that moment.  They tuned out the saturating conditions and just kept playing the game.  They decided to do their best and to have fun. They demonstrated the resilience that seems to come naturally to kids.  The kids weren’t paralyzed by the conditions, but rather maintained a bounce in their step.

In those moments, those days, or those weeks when we reach our saturation point mentally, emotionally or even physically, what we need most is clarity and focus.  These moments when we reach our saturation point are opportunities to reorder our priorities and to focus on our primary roles in life.  They are opportunities to demonstrate the resilience of a child.  It’s amazing what happens when we choose to focus on the right things during the moments that test our resolve.  Life is is about how we play the game and leaving it all on the field in spite of the weather.  I just hope that I can maintain the resilience of a child.

Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:3 TNIV)

Have you ever watched or taken part in a sporting event during foul weather conditions?  What did you learn from your experience?