BUZZ SPEAK

I had to post a job vacancy today. I have advertised this job once before but after a round of interviews we just didn’t find the right fit.


Hiring can get quite comical. You can almost tell how young or how desperate a person is by the amount of BUZZWORDS they use. I miss the days when people used to rely on the fact that they were a “people person.” Now applicants just spew out big words that if I asked them to translate probably couldn’t. Buzzwords make you sound shallow not smart.

In order to create a new paradigm shift in applying for jobs, we need to engage the applicants in a new overarching strategy to find employment. Out of the box thinking will be the new normal as applicants can design their own revolutionary style that will establish a synergistic approach with hiring managers.

These game-changing tactics can be integrated into a cover letter and resume that will help applicants drill down into a successful match of their personal core competencies. Applicants need to have a ninja like approach so they can motivate potential employers to see their bleeding edge history of success.

Let employers see that you are the guru of change management and you have an authentic ability to address the mission critical issues facing their business. If you follow this advice you will be on your way to a promotion before you get to the companies onboarding.

When applying for a job, respect the audience who will read your information. Stop sugarcoating and dancing around the issue, just say, “I have a proven history of success. You have a problem that I can fix, and most importantly, I want to work for this company and for you.” You don’t get points for big words, you get points for success. The best resumes never need a dressing up with words, they just need you to effectively communicate your work history and how you will translate that success to the employer.

Good luck in your job search and if you are a game-changing authentic leader who can engage YMCA members with revolutionary programs that will affect their health and well being then you need to bring your core competencies to the Y, and help me establish a new paradigm shift for our community. Send me your resume so we can create some synergistic out of the box change!

EARN THIS

It was crazy on the Friday morning that I flew home from Dallas. Maybe it was because I bottled in so much emotion that week, but about ¾ of the way through the flight, I started to cry. After about a minute the little old lady in the center seat reached over and just held my hand. She never said a word and I never looked up. It was just a warm motherly squeeze. For a second I almost leaned over and put my head on her shoulder but I regained my composure and shuffled around in my seat.

She was in front of me as we walked off the plane and up the ramp. I was looking for her to just say thanks and to explain my tears, but when I got through the doors of the concourse she was gone. I looked left and right and up and down but there was no grandma. She couldn’t be that fast to disappear like that, so I moved around hurriedly trying to catch a glimpse of her. Finally I just shrugged my shoulders and kind of half expected Della Reese or that English lady from the old TV show Touched by an Angel to walk up.

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The first time I met Jennifer, we were BEST friends. We had that instant connection like we had known each other forever. No awkward hand-shakes between us, it was all hugs, laughter and high-fives. Now I can easily see three things that immediately connected us.

First thing: She loved Jeff. She came at a time in his life where he needed her. And I was so impressed by her connection to him. It wasn’t this doe-eyed teenage love-worship, but it was this confidence that they belonged together. They shared something wonderful in their relationship from beginning to end and that was laughter. They were best friends. All marriages should be woven together through a fabric so joyous.

Second thing: She treasured her kids. She was a Tiger mom, but not like the one on the news reports. She’s the Tiger mom who reveled in the spirit of her three, wonderfully unique children. She loved them for their little idiosyncrasies, their warmth and because they all exuded her spirit. I watched her visit North Carolina last year and I saw a woman exhausting herself to create memories with her kids. She spent a week just splashing in the ocean, cheering at the climbing wall and soaking up just the minutes. I watched her WATCH her kids. I witnessed the Tiger in her.

Third thing: Jennifer was a warrior. It makes me think twice when I complain about a headache or back pain. We all witnessed her bravery and her dogged determination.
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Throughout the years I have joked with Jeff, his family and our friends that I have carried Jeff. I mean, there probably hasn’t been a female he has spoken to that I didn’t either first soften the ground or grease the skids. So you can imagine my worry when they got married because Jeff was to recite these personally written vows. Not read, but recite. And I didn’t even help him write the vows. When I asked him if he was ready he would give me the George Lopez response, “I Got This!”

And at their wedding he spit out a 3 minute speech that was wonderfully astounding. It left me in what my grandfather would call, “Slack Jawed amazement.”

It was in that short speech that I understood him as more than just my friend. I understood him as more than just my brother. Those three minutes revealed his strength, revealed his dreams and revealed the depth of love in his heart. We often don’t know how much we are capable of loving until our lives are in crisis.
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The last few weeks of Jennifer's life I could almost hear her telling me to "EARN THIS." I guess it was a reflection to a scene in the movie Saving Private Ryan. At the end of the movie, the Tom Hanks character is on the bridge dying and he calls over Private Ryan, which is played by Matt Damon. Damon leans in and Hanks whispers into his ear, “EARN THIS.”

It was like she was telling me, "Cam I'm not fighting this hard for nothing." Didn’t she live her life in a way that she is telling us all to “EARN THIS?” We should all aspire to lead lives that transform and impact the the people around us. How can we take life for granted? Knowing this can tomorrow really be a day where I just go through the motions?

My life has been so blessed to have Jennifer as my friend. How much does it cost to be rich in friends? How many years and stories does it take to make a rich life happen? I think about all the people in her life and think of the terrible loss we have suffered, yet we are all richer today because of Jennifer. It is as if she left some emotional inheritance of her life that would continue to be told.

Even though I am truly sad, I still have the confidence to say, may the peace of Christ bless you and keep you. And today may you hold your family close, feel them breathe, take in their remarkable smell and just love them.

LIVESTRONG

2 ½ years ago I went online and in 30 seconds I became a certified minister. I joked that I could do weddings, bar mitzvahs, and probably a few satanic rituals.

I did it so I could marry my best friend and the love of his life, who was his live in companion of more than a decade. She would tell people, “I have been raising three kids for the past decade with this man. I don’t need much more to prove that we are married.” It seemed though that after a few years of her battling cancer, a formal wedding was just the thing that she wanted, and performing the wedding like the character Joey on Friends is one of the great joys of my life.
Now I am afraid that any day now I will be called to do her funeral. Hospice has been called in and the family will play this waiting game. Trying to soak in every ounce of love this woman has before she dies.

I don’t understand the randomness of cancer. I can’t remember young people getting cancer with such frequency like I see now. Maybe it is just a sign of my aging.

I have watched friends take this on with incredible strength and perseverance. I am not sure that I could show the same dogged determination. Fighting for just memories. Trying to throw out specks of love that your children will take with them forever. One friend said, "I have the easy part; I will die and go to heaven. My husband has to stay and pick up the pieces with our children.”

Tonight I will just hug my children a little tighter. Stare at them longer and hope that is some small way I can make a memory. I will stare across the room at my wife and just pray that she understands that she can’t measure my love and admiration for her.

Tonight, pray for all the families that are traveling that crazy road that cancer creates. We might not know the right things to say, but our prayers can never be misunderstood.

Coach Valvano and Lorenzo Charles

The tragic death of Lorenzo Charles has made all basketball fans reflect back to 1983. One of the great quotes I read today was from Thurl Bailey, “Coach V and Lo had a big hug in heaven.”

The '83 National Championship run of the NC State Wolfpack is being remembered and lauded as one of the top 10 greatest feats in all of sports. As a Tar Heel fan I think that may be a little extreme, but it could be a chapter in the business book SWITCH.

SWITCH is one of the hot books written by brothers Dan and Chip Heath. It is a tremendous book about how to create change when change is hard. Valvano had to change the mindset of the Wolfpack who went into the ACC tournament with an injured Derrick Whittenburg and a 4th place regular season finish. How did he do that? He did that with that old sports cliché, “Just one game at a time.”

If the Pack stewed about facing Michael Jordan and Ralph Sampson, they could have been overwhelmed, but instead he implored his team to just win the next game. And then he broke it down even more simply, “Slow the game down and hit your 3’s.”

Famed UCLA Coach, John Wooden, often spoke about making small improvements every day. Eventually that improvement will build confidence and that will snowball. Valvano was a master at shrinking the change. Imagine the confidence they had with this style of basketball as the beat the Tar Heels and Virginia.

Just like the authors of SWITCH teach us, Valvano found the bright spots; they had heart, played smart and could shoot 3’s. He got his team to imagine the destination by shrinking the change and focusing on one game at a time. And finally he scripted the steps by slowing the ball down, shooting 3’s and fouling the other teams.

The Cardiac Kids as they were called captured the hearts of all basketball fans. Even when they told Valvano that he had no chance to beat Houston and Hakeem Olajuwon, he replied, “I will tell you has no chance of winning, UCLA and Kansas because they are not here. But we are in the finals so we do have some chance of winning.” Back in 1983 Coach V was finding the bright spots!