Lifelong Project

Solider Surprises Son

Every Saturday I'll share some great things from around the web. This video touched me and I think you'll like it too. Let's hope all our men and women come home safe and soon.

Zen and Zoom

Every Friday is Zen and Zoom picture day. Enjoy!

This photo was from a couple of years ago on a hike around the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

 

Giving Thanks

The first Thanksgiving, in 1621, was between the Plymouth Colonists and the Wampanoag Indians - a harvest feast of thanks for the bountiful crops. While pumpkin pie wasn’t likely on the menu, deer, lobster, seal, and swans probably were. Turkey was probably one of the wild fowls that were served along with plums, grapes, and veggies like pumpkin, peas, onions, and carrots. Regardless of the actual menu it was a day of celebration, of thanks, and looking forward knowing they’d prepared for the winter months ahead.

The first Thanksgiving I can remember I was in first grade. It was a usual Indiana November: cold, wet, spitting snow, and low gray clouds. We dressed up like Pilgrims and Indians the day before our holiday: black construction paper hats and craft-store feathers glued to headbands. We made turkeys by tracing our fingers on yellow paper and we were all happy. We “feasted” on pizza, candy corn, and punch. We were thankful for the excitement and something different at school. I was too young to realize what was happening in the world - it was 1976:

• The unemployment rate was 7.8 percent
• Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford in the presidential election
• Apple Computer Company was formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
• Ted Turner bought the Atlanta Braves for $12 million
• OJ Simpson ran for 237 yards for Buffalo against Detroit
• The prime interest rate was 6.50 percent

For many I’m certain today’s Thanksgiving is bittersweet. The economy is less than stellar, thousands have lost their jobs, and savings are evaporating. Homes are being foreclosed, dreams lost, and businesses teeter on the edge of crashing. There is uncertainty, panic, and dread about the months, weeks, and days ahead. The world is shouting hate, war, and terror.

It’s easy to be angry and spiteful on Thanksgiving when there’s so much wrong in the world today. It’s easy to be thankful for when things are going well, bills are paid, and work is steady. Character, however, is shown in times like these. Character is shown when we give thanks for what we have. Character is shown when we’re grateful despite all that’s been lost, the stress on our mind, and the fear lurking at the mailbox.

Show courage and be thankful.

Show faith and show gratitude.

Show determination and appreciate what you have.

So today, this Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for what I have and for the opportunity these challenging times present. We have an opportunity to grow, to change our lives, and to start something new. If you’re mourning what’s been lost, I understand, but give thanks for what the tide has brought: an opportunity to change your life, your career, yourself. Now is the time to start anew if you’ve been thinking about a change. Now is the time to rekindle those old passions.

Thank you - for reading.

New Digs!

In case you’ve not noticed I’ve moved my Lifelong Project website and blog to Typepad. I really like all that this service can do for me - including easier to schedule posts, picture integration, and both static and dynamic pages. The new masthead at the top is something I created in good, old Photoshop. I wanted to represent all of the things and aspects you could manage and achieve in your personal project. And yes, that’s a small picture of me up there presenting the Lifelong Project from my recent trip to Belgium.

Did you know that you can get Lifelong Project updates on your Google homepage? It’s a snap - just click the Google button there to the left under our logo. You can also add this site to any RSS reader that you like. You might also notice that you can now add any post to Digg and Delicious to share our content with these networks. Please do!

I’ll be growing the Lifelong Project over the December and into January 2009. You’ll see some new and creative topics, posts, and project support over the next few weeks. Come back often for surprises and updates. If you’ve suggestions, ideas, or comments for the blog leave them below. Thanks!

Meaningful Work

I occasionally receive random resumes from folks hoping I’ve project management positions open for them. Unfortunately I don’t. I really don’t want employees at this stage of my business as I primarily work with contractors for training and editing. When I do receive a resume, however, I’ll keep it just in case someone asks me if I know of a project manager looking for work. You just never know.

The thing that surprises me is what I find on many of the resumes I receive. The project managers state that they are looking for meaningful work. What does that mean, to have meaningful work? Does that mean the project managers are only willing to accept positions that have deep, philosophical significance to their lives? Would they refuse a six-figure salary to be a project manager for a cheese manufacturer because the work wasn’t meaningful?

I think I know what the project manager’s intent was - they wanted valuable, exciting, and worthwhile work. But work, all work, has meaning if you look for it. While the work may be boring to you it could be the most valuable assignment on the project if you don’t complete it. Work provides an opportunity to grow, experience, perfect, and support others. The most important thing in a project, in execution, is the reason why the project exists - there’s the meaning.

If you want to find meaning in any assignment just find out why it’s important. Sometimes we long for exciting, highly-visible undertakings because the meaning is so evident - and it feels good to be meaningful to others. You can have that meaningful feeling in all work. Consider some of the most physically-challenging jobs like your trash man’s task. If you don’t think his job is meaningful don’t set your trash out for a few weeks.

In the Lifelong Project living a life with meaning, with purpose, is a core principle. Certainly finding employment that meshes with your values is important, but your life is more than our employment. We are not job titles, roles and responsibilities, or assignments. We are what we do all of the time. If you want to find what’s meaningful to you examine what you do, and don’t do, in your daily life.

Finding meaning in everything you do can help you become a better individual and live your life with more joy, and with more passion.

Change and the Project Manager

We’ve heard an awful lot about change over the past few months. Projects, all projects, are about change. Projects take the current state and through project management and execution take an organization to a desired future state. Projects are always doing one of four activities when you think about it:

Moving
Adding
Changing
Deleting

We sometimes call this MACD - move, add, change, or delete because that’s what’s happening in the organization when you launch a project.

But in order to do a project, to do the change everyone seems to want, there has to be definition of what the desired change is. A desire for something different is fine, but a desire for something different without defining what the something different is to be is silly. The requirements for organizational, personal, and national change in project management centers on the project scope. The project scope is all of the required work - and only the required work - to bring about the desired change to move the project from here, the current state, to there, the desired future state.

It’s really the same thing with the message of change we’ve all been hearing over the past year. Change is fine if we know what the change is. Until there is a definition we really don’t know what the change is, what the change will be, and there’s certainly no methodology to get from here to there.

Change in the Lifelong Project is also about definition. What change do you want in your life? Do you want to add or subtract things? Try new experiences? Change things about your personality, work, body, or income? Until you define exactly what those changes are then there’s little reason to do work because how do you know what it is you’re working towards?

Knowing what you want is often more than half the battle. Sometimes all of us are like a six-year old at the ice cream: indecisive about what we want, but clear about what we don’t want. As we wind down this year and look forward to an exciting new year I encourage you to begin thinking, writing, pondering, defining the exact changes you want in your life. Once you know what change you want, once you know what it is you want to create, then the action to get there is much simpler.

Closing the Project

Approximately three years ago I started my Lifelong Project. My original goal was to see if I could apply the principles of project management to the complexities of life. I did and I still am. Project management has helped me reach some goals that I never thought possible - and it’s helped me do some identification of what I wanted in and out of my life. It has been a fascinating learning experience - so far.

The first year of this project I had broad, lofty goals, like “be a good person.” I still cling to those goals but my lessons learned from the end of year one was that specific, measurable goals were needed - just like objectives in a business project. So last year I created some specific goals and I worked hard to achieve them:

Visit London and trek through Europe all the way to Rome. I did this goal as part of a series of lectures on the Lifelong Project. I spent last January in Europe, received a blessing from the Pope, toured the Coliseum, gawked at the Eiffel Tower, and met amazing people in every city. As a result of this series of lectures I was invited back to Belgium to be the keynote speaker at the PMI BeNeLux Day.

Spend more time with my son. My son KJ turned 13 this year. He lives with me during the summer and holidays and with his mom the rest of the time. It’s not the most ideal situation, but it works well. He’s a great boy and I set a goal to spend as much time with him as possible. KJ and I had a great year: we fished, hiked, camped, went to concerts, baseball games, and other events. It’s a constant goal to set a good example for him and to be the best father I can.

Finish a book on program management. I write on many different topics and one of my goals was to finish a book on project management’s daddy - program management. The book’s done and I’m glad to have that tough one on the bookshelf.

Finish the Chicago Marathon. This year I ran two half marathons: the Indianapolis Mini Marathon and my neighborhood’s The Geist Half Marathon. These were part of my training for the Chicago Marathon. I finished the (sweaty me)">Chicago Marathon as planned. (It was the toughest thing I’ve ever done.)

Grow my business. It’s been a tough year on the training business. My sales have slumped this last quarter like never before. One of my 2008 goals was to grow my training business by twenty percent and for part of the year it looked like I did. Many of my clients were in the financial sector and training, along with the economy, tanked. While I did pick up some new clients, started a teaching relationship with Ball State University, and have delivered several new seminars my year-to-date sales are down. Without making excuses, I have grown my business on some fronts and have watched it shrink on others.

I have one goal left in my 2008 Lifelong Project. I can’t share the big news just yet, but it’s coming. I’m on the brink of seeing my last goal become a reality and I’ll share the good word with you as soon as I’m allowed. And I’ll need your help spreading the news with everyone you know.

Now I’m working on even more specific goals for 2009. It’s time in these final 60 days of 2008 to determine what you’d like for 2009. It’s time to imagine how richer, happier, and wonderful your life can be next year if you decide to do. Browse my blog, visit my home page, and think about your Lifelong Project. If you’d like to discuss bringing this honest presentation to your group please contact me at 877.729.1200. I’d be honored to discuss the opportunity.

All my best,

Joseph Phillips