by Lance Cashion | Feb 11, 2014 | Education, Family, Friendships, Lance's Philosophy, News, Personal Growth, Relationships, Uncategorized, Wisdom
My wife Kat is my most trusted advisor. She is truly a Proverbs 31:10 wife. I admit that I don’t always listen to her advice, in many cases to my own detriment. However, years before we were married, she gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever received from anyone. ‘Trust but verify’. Kathryn picked it up from someone she worked with in Austin. I pass it on regularly.
Kat is very pretty and pretty practical when it comes to working with other people. I have a tendency to over-trust or completely under-trust folks. This is to my detriment as well. Kat on the other hand has a balanced approach to working with people. This approach extends to me, our children and others.
“Trust but verify”
I don’t remember the first time I heard the phrase “trust but verify” emerge from her lips but, it stuck with me ever since. I apply it daily. I found it contains both grace and accountability. It has nothing to do with distrust but affirms a growing trust in a relationship.
Family:
If I ask my 4yr old son if he cleaned up his room and he says he did, I trust him that he actually cleaned his room and walk with him down to his room and verify. When we arrive, I see that his room is clean and affirm him with praise. “Well done son…. well done.”
Old Relationships:
When I’m advising or mentoring a friend or client, I’m constantly employing ‘trust but verify’, particularly if I’ve discovered that my friend has acted on bad advice in the past. Acting on bad advice is dangerous. Therefore, I take it seriously when someone presents something that just doesn’t pass the ‘smell test’.
New Relationships:
In a new relationship, I have no idea if someone is making choices on bad advice or false assumptions. Therefore, I have to trust them but verify the validity of the underlying advice or assumption. Once I validate the information, I can affirm the choice or help correct it. Both contain grace and accountability.
Applied to me:
Personally, I appreciated when others apply ‘trust but verify’ to me because I value accountability. Many times my wife and others close to me have helped me see that my thinking was wrong or I simply forgot to do something I said I would.
11th Commandment (If there actually was one):
Thou shalt ‘Trust but Verify’!
by Lance Cashion | Jan 23, 2014 | Culture, Education, Family, Friendships, Lance's Philosophy, Leadership, News, Personal Growth, Relationships, Uncategorized, Wisdom
Our small group met last night and one struggle that we all seem to share is saying ‘no’. We live in a culture that loves to say ‘yes’ to pretty much everything. So, saying ‘no’ in a ‘yes’ culture is tough. In fact, there is a guilt attached to saying ‘no’.
Truth be told, I’ve had to work to change my default response to a request from ‘yes’ to ‘no’. My default has always been ‘yes’. I’ve learned that ‘yes’ can get me into trouble. I continue to struggle with it. I want to please others. To much ‘yes’ ends up disappointing everyone.
When I say ‘yes’ to one thing, I’m saying ‘no’ to another.
“You can say no with respect, you can say no promptly and you can say no with a lead to someone who might say yes. But just saying yes because you can’t bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work. Saying no to loud people gives you the resources to say yes to important opportunities.” – Seth Godin
Let me give you a quick example. If someone asks me to help or volunteer for a cause and I say ‘yes’, I have now moved a portion of my time and energy away from one area of my life and committed it to another.
Understanding the limitations that time places on our lives is important in understanding why we need to say ‘no’.
‘No’ protects the most important relationships and priorities in your life. ‘No’ allows you to do what is important. Say ‘no’ and reaffirm the relationship. Move on.
Below are some links that may help you say ‘no’. Remember, this will take practice.
MICHAEL HYATT:
SETH GODIN:
DAVE RAMSEY:
JESUS CHRIST:
“Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” (Matthew 5:37)
Do you have trouble saying ‘no’?
by Lance Cashion | Sep 16, 2013 | Culture, Education, Friendships, God, Lance's Philosophy, Personal Growth, Relationships, Uncategorized, Wisdom
I love everything about vinyl records.
I love their shape, the way they smell, how they feel in my hands and watching them go round and round on a turntable. It’s fascinating how vibrations created by tiny grooves in the record’s surface are transferred from the needle (or stylus), up the tonearm and eventually through the speakers and to our ears. Vinyl is extremely cool.
The warm sound produced by a vinyl recording has yet to be matched in the digital world. In fact, for years audio software designers have been trying to mimic the analog warmth of vinyl and can’t seem to create the same effect on CD or digital recording.
If you have ever listened to vinyl records, you know that they have surface noise. As the record turns round, you can hear the needle riding in the grooves. You hear little pops, scratches, dust particles and imperfections on the surface of the record. Due to these ‘imperfections’ no two identical records will sound the same. Each is unique. For some unexplainable reason, our brains love this!
Today, music production has become clinical, sterile and loud. The surface noise and warmth of vinyl have been irradiated and replaced with ‘perfect’ digital sound. Every digital duplication is exactly the same.
Life without surface noise?
Imagine if your life and the lives of everyone around you were perfect digital copies devoid of imperfections or ‘surface noise’.
- What if everything in life was predictable?
- What if everyone agreed with you all the time?
- What if everyone was exactly what you wanted them to be 100% of the time?
For some reason we try to sterilize our lives and make everything perfect. We irradiate anything and everything we view as imperfect or disagreeable. We have created a culture that places the highest value on an ideal image and self.
Counterfeit Culture
As a cultural, we hold up a fashion magazine with an image of a woman with a perfect face and perfect body. Culture’s message is clear, “This is the image WE value! If your daughter, wife or sister does not look like this image, she is worthless!”
The problem is that the image of perfection on the magazine that we uphold is counterfeit. That image of the perfect woman has been clinically manipulated and airbrushed by an artist with a computer. So, its a lie. The surface noise has been removed as each square millimeter of the image has been scrubbed of all humanness.
In our relationships, we sterilize ourselves of our uniqueness by trying to become the perfect someone we were not created to be. We build unrealistic expectations into our relationships with others in attempt to make others into the perfect someone they were not created to be. We sterilize our lives of the pops, scratches, dust and imperfections.
Cultural Confusion and Loss of Identity
Unconsciously we force our own children to fit a mold of what culture defines as valuable, be it the right school, the right cloths, the right activities or the right ideology. We force people into a mold. Then we tell them to ‘be themselves.’ Little wonder western culture finds itself in a state of confusion. Many people have lost their true identity. So, they stumble around trying to find their identity in a culture that is adrift.
As our lives revolve around the turntable of time, there is going to be surface noise. The surface noise on a record gives it warmth and uniqueness. The same can be said for life. Life has surface noise and that is a part of the human experience. We were uniquely created and thank God for that! A life without surface noise is not life, its merely existence….
For the record I prefer listening to vinyl over CD (pun intended). CDs and MP3s just happen to be a little more convenient.
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by Lance Cashion | Aug 14, 2013 | Encouragement, Family, Friendships, Lance's Philosophy, Leadership, Personal Growth, Uncategorized |
The biggest challenge we can face in our relationships is to hang in there with a loved one or friend when times are tough for them. In seasons of depression, illness, loss or testing, our true friends emerge. Sticking with the stuck is hard, particularly when the stuck show little or no gratitude at the time.
Video Link: West Wing clip “Now we’re both in the Hole”
Stick with the stuck:
The other day I was listening R.C. Sproul talk on the subject of character and values passed down from fathers to sons. One man he knew said that when he was a boy his father always helped people who found themselves in the midst of being stuck and were trying to get unstuck. The boy asked his father why he ‘wasted’ time with people in difficult situations who showed no appreciation for a helping hand.
The boy’s father said, “We stick with the stuck, son.“
I’ve been stuck on many occasions in my life. Each time, there has been someone there sticking with me. I can be mean, nasty and ungrateful when I’m stuck. Just ask my wife. She hasn’t left my side. She is my friend and she is sticky. I try to be more like her.
Because he/she is my friend:
The late Chuck Colson was giving a speech to a large audience after serving a term in prison for his involvement in the Watergate Scandal (Special Counsel to President Nixon from 1969 to 1973. His nickname was ‘the Hatchet Man’). Keep in mind, most of the nation held Nixon in contempt and loathed anyone involved in the scandal, including Chuck Colson. In the midst of Mr. Colson’s speech, an angry protester shouted the condemning question; “Why would you go to jail for a man like Richard Nixon?” The protestor assumed that he would insight anger against Mr. Colson.
Chuck Colson paused, looked down and silence fell on the crowd. Then, he raised his head and stared directly into the eyes of the questioner and said; “Because Richard Nixon is my friend“. At this simple yet profoundly honest answer, the crowed stood up and cheered. Even the protester couldn’t help himself as he applauded Chuck’s response.
Why did the crowd respond in such a manner? Because we all want a friend like that. I want to be a friend like that and have friends like that. Obviously, we hope there won’t be prison time involved. But, you get the point.
You know the way out
Sometimes our relationships are tested by fire as we stand on the edge of the abyss with a friend. Sometimes we stand alone peering down into the darkness and hear the cries for help from below. If you’ve been down there before, the darkness is like light to you. You know the way out, right? Whether its a divorce, cancer, loss of a parent or child, etc., if you have experience, you may be the ONLY one who can help.
Are you sticky?
‘One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.’ Prov 18:24
Read also the first Chapter of Ruth.
Can you think of a time when you were stuck and a friend jumped in the hole with you?
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by Lance Cashion | Jul 23, 2013 | Encouragement, Family, Friendships, God, Lance's Philosophy, Personal Growth, Uncategorized
Last Saturday I got a chance to spend some time with a few of my oldest friends at a birthday party in Austin. Two of whom, I have known for nearly 20 years. One was my first friend at college. I met her when I stepped into the dorm elevator during freshman orientation. Little did I know that I was stepping into a life-long friendship. The second friend, I met at a friend’s house my second year of college. Little did I know that when I shook this kid’s hand, he would later become my little brother in my fraternity and the best man at my wedding. BTW, He ended up marrying the girl from the elevator.
The rest of this of this group I’ve known for at least 13 years. To say they know me pretty well is an understatement. (more…)
