Chris.Gould.Is

Month: March 2016

  • 35 Years

    35 Years

    Ten days ago, I turned 35 years old. Not surprisingly, I found myself to be in a contemplative mood in the days leading up to my birthday. Because most of my dear readers are close friends and family, likely you will not be surprised at my age.

    But I am. I am surprised to find myself 35 years old. Certainly, I remember many milestones along the last 12,784 days of my life – the birth of my three children, my wedding (bits and pieces!), finishing college, graduating high school, and on and on. However, when I try to add up my memories, the sum seems to fall far short of 35 years.

    I’m sure that is the way of it, the greater the distance from the events, the fewer events are retained. Regardless, 35 years old still seems like a mystical age I remember talking about, in my twenties, as being an eternity away!

    In my last session with Bonnie, as we were discussing my recent realizations about how I think about money, Bonnie asked me how I define success. I didn’t have a good answer.

    I told Bonnie that I don’t want to ever consider myself successful, because that seems final. I want to lay on my deathbed (see? painfully contemplative of late!), look back at my life, and decide I lived a successful life. But today, I don’t want to have arrived at that particular destination.

    Instead, I want to be satisfied. Content.

    Now if you’re hoping that I am going to lay out some excellent, detailed, scriptural definition of “content” for you, I’m sorry, I’m fresh out. Frankly, I suck at being content. I even suck at my own birthday!

    For the majority of my life, my snap answer would be that I am not content or satisfied with any of it. There is so much about my world I want to improve, fix, change, and the like!

    My definition of “content” is that I am satisfied with every aspect of my life. Clearly, my definition of “content” is unattainable and a picture of perfection. Interestingly, I understand that “content” is supposed to mean an intermediate state, but that’s not how I think of “content.” “Content” doesn’t mean finished, satisfied, happy even! Yet when I ask myself whether I am “content”, all I see is all the areas I want to improve.

    Part of our pastor’s sermon, the weekend prior to my birthday, was on being content. Pastor Bill described being content as “wanting what you already have.” I’ve decided to adopt this definition, because it makes sense to me. I want to be content, I recognize the value and importance of being content. I just have to learn how!

    I’m fighting the urge to give you a detailed run-down of my life, and a “content / non content” status for each, based on this new definition. In fact, if you’d like me to detail that, please let me know in the comments. But for now, I’m going to assume that my recent introspection is sufficient for you.

    The truth is that I am largely content with my life today – using this revised definition of “content.” Are there areas I’m working on and hoping to improve? Absolutely. Are there areas I feel I am killing? A few. Does my life today looked like what I imagined 35 would look like, at 18 or 21? I don’t think so, but honestly I didn’t have much of a plan past college, career, and marriage! Excepting kids, which I was firmly convinced I did NOT want. I am so thankful to have changed my mind!

    I have been incredibly privileged to have the opportunities and the work ethic to accomplish many things, experience many things, and enjoy many things. I lead a good life.

    In fact, I actually want most, if not all, of the aspects of my life today. The areas that I am not satisfied with, I am working on, for the most part, and I recognize the value of the journey. Thankfully there are only a few areas of both discontent and lack of effort – and I have plans to work on those, when I have time. In short, I’m not completely satisfied, but I am content with my place, progress, and plans to improve

    I’d be lying if I said I am excited to have turned 35, but as I mark this milestone, I am incredibly thankful for the life I lead, and excited about the journey ahead. Thank you for taking part of this journey with me!

  • What is Life Coaching?

    What is Life Coaching?

    Below is my first attempt at “copy writing”. Bonnie had asked me if I could give a testimonial about life coaching, and this is what I sent back. Enjoy!

     

    Ever heard of a star athlete without a coach? The athlete has talent, skill, drive, dedication, and a deep knowledge of their game. So why have a coach? Because what each athlete lacks is the ability to clearly see himself. No athlete can identify his own weaknesses. But the coach sees the weaknesses, and works with the athlete to achieve greatness. So why life coaching? I was incredibly skeptical of having a life coach. After all, I *knew* how to live well! I was a rising star a work, had a great marriage, and a beautiful baby daughter! But what I understand now, that I couldn’t see then, were my weaknesses. For me, it was a relentless internal critic who drove me to near perfection in everything I did, but refused to allow me any rest and tormented my every waking moment. It was issues with myself image. It was a deep seated desire to connect with people, coupled with a huge fear of embarrassment. I will be honest; it takes a serious submission of will and sacrifice of pride, as a man, to admit that I need to see a life coach. But no less or different a sacrifice than admitting I need a coach for sports, business, music, or spirituality. And the benefit of being aware of my weaknesses has been staggering! So what is a life coach? Imagine all of the honesty of your closest friends and family, delivered in a constructive and encouraging way, with none of the emotional baggage or history. If you are really honest with yourself looking in the mirror, you know there are areas of your life that are not excellent or smooth or successful, but you can’t name them or you don’t want to acknowledge them. But you know they exist. A life coach will show you the things about yourself that you cannot or will not see on your own. Is having my life coached fun? No. I enjoy my coaching time, but the learning and growing process is a surprising amount of mental and emotional pain. Am I cured? No, but I play the game of life better now than I ever have. Is life coaching worth the pain? ABSOLUTELY.

  • Money Tells a Story

    Money Tells a Story

    When talking about turning down opportunities on the Tim Ferris podcast, Seth Godin explained that “Money is a story. Once you have enough for beans and rice, and taking care of your family, and a few other things, money is a story. And, you can tell yourself any story you want about money. But its better to tell yourself a story about money that you can happily live with.”

    Interestingly, this quote closely mirrors Bonnie‘s comment to me, after telling her about an incident I had recently with a pharmacist. Bonnie asked me what story did the pharmacist’s behavior tell me about myself?

    So here’s the incident in question: I was going to pick up a prescription for Maria, and through some *fun* insurance mix-up, they didn’t have Maria’s current insurance. The cash price of the prescription was $14.99. The pharmacist explained the insurance situation, I confirmed that the price was $15, and said it would be fine. The pharmacist innocently asked me, “Are you sure?” I politely affirmed that I was, but internally I was ENRAGED. How dare he ask me a second time?? What, do I look like $15 is a hardship? Sure, I drive a ten-year old car, and I was probably several days unshaven and in a t-shirt. But we are talking about $15, not $1500! Am I not MAN enough to provide for my wife’s medical needs??

    Does my response seem disproportionate to you? Fortunately, it did to me too.

    I’ve really been chewing on why the pharmacist’s confirmation of my willingness to pay cash for a prescription, rather than bill the insurance, enraged me so much. Do I believe the pharmacist was concerned that I couldn’t afford it? No. I don’t honestly think it would have mattered whether I was driving a Bentley, smiling through gold teeth, and smoking $100 bills, I think he would have asked anyway (quite a mental image though!).

    But here’s what I’ve come to understand about my view of money: being able to spend money seemingly carelessly means you are successful.

    That makes total sense, right? I mean, success equals carefree money?

    Yeah, no.

    So in my mind, when the pharmacist confirmed my willingness to pay for the prescription, what I really heard was him questioning my success in life, as a provider, as a man.

    I have an unhealthy relationship with money. When my family has margin in our cash flow, I am at ease. As soon as things tighten up any, as they invariably do with three beautifully accident and illness prone children, I get crazy tense. I begin to refuse to buy simple things I actually need, like aftershave. Seriously, right now, I need to buy some aftershave and won’t, because it seems superfluous. But I’d rather sacrifice the very skin of my face, than spend the money!

    The rat hole goes much deeper than this, as I’ve come to understand. Turns out I would rather forgo buying things I need, to protect whatever little cash we happen to have on hand, so that I don’t have to say to Maria or anyone that we can’t afford something. What is really important to me is that I appear to be successful in front of others, and the only way I know to communicate that is by always being able to spend money when called upon. I’m talking about things like going to the movies as a group, impromptu trips to see family members, etc. I don’t mean truly extravagant things. The whole thing is nuts!

    Let me stop and say that I make plenty of money, and I know that my family is well provided for. Ironically, what matters is not how big or small the number I report on my taxes as income, because only Maria and I (and some unknown number of bureaucrats in the IRS!) ever see that. But my self-confidence rides the balance in our checking account like a stock trader rides the indexes.

    There’s no happy ending here for me, at this point. This post is simply the ripping off of the emotional scab that has hidden the wound and the underlying truth, knowing that now it can begin to heal properly.

    If you find yourself in a similar boat, fighting with money regardless of your actual income, take heart! Your value, as a person, is NOT based on how much money you can spend at the drop of a hat. Nor is your worth based on how much money you bring home, how many toys you have, or how big your house is. Neither is mine. We both have to learn to accept the truth of that.