Randy Cantrell is the founder of Bula Network, LLC - an executive leadership advisory company helping leaders leverage the power of others through peer advantage, online peer advisory groups. Interested in joining us? Visit ThePeerAdvantage.com
Donn Pearce wrote the novel in 1965. He also wrote the screenplay made famous by Paul Newman’s brilliant portrayal of a man who refused to be broken.
Even in his personal life, I always thought of Paul Newman as “cool.” Cool Hand Luke. The movie was released on November 1, 1967. That was 45 years ago today. From them to now people often use the phrase made famous by Strother Martin.
During the recording of the song, Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s lead singer Ronnie Van Zant says, “Turn it up,” asking the recording engineer to turn up the volume in his headset. Legendary record producer Al Kooper thought it sounded good and decided to leave it in the final mix.
turning it up
Sometimes we just need higher volume. You’ve experienced it sitting in your own den as your family watches TV. Somebody, maybe you, ask the person with the remote (and that should always be YOU), ” Turn it up!” Maybe the room noise is making it difficult for us to hear. It could be the content volume is just too low and we can’t make out the dialog.
If it’s not loud enough we can’t hear it well enough to understand it. If we can’t understand it, it’s like that proverbial tree falling in a forest with nobody there to hear it.
Turn it up so you can understand better. Learn more. Grow. Improve.
Turn it up so others can understand you better. Learn from you. Grow from your help. Improve because you care enough.
Last week I looked at the dashboard for this website and noticed 483 published posts and an astonishingly high number of drafted posts, posts that are in various stages of completion, but have never yet seen the light of day.
148 drafts.
That’s almost 31% of the actual published posts. Just sitting there. Unfinished.
That means that almost a quarter of all the posts started…were never completed.
Yep, I got a calculator to quickly figure that out. It stuck in my head, “Almost a 25% failure rate!” Actually, it’s 23.45%, but what are a few percentage points among friends. I suppose I should round down, not up – when figuring out my failure rate. Does it say something about me that I rounded up? Maybe.
I began to wonder if my WordPress draft folder was an appropriate metaphor for my life.
There have been times when I suspect I’d have celebrated a mere 25% failure rate. Is a 75% still a passing grade in school?
I’m competitive. Always have been. I was almost always ashamed – yes, ashamed – if I didn’t hit in the higher 90% range. I didn’t say I always scored that high! I said when I didn’t, I was always ashamed. Always! My mother was never satisfied with anything less than an A.
But it dawned on me that a draft is a bit like an INCOMPLETE in school. It’s not even a grade really. It’s worse. It’s “you never even did the work.” Well, okay…maybe better said, it’s “you never finished the work.”
What’s unfinished in your life?
What are the things that languish in your drafts’ folder?
Are there things in there that belong in the trash? They just need to be deleted because they have no use or potential?
Are there things in there that deserve to be finished? They need time and attention to be completed or more fully developed because they do have value?
It’s a dermatology term that means sun protection factor. I’m not using it as a dermatology term though. Rather, I’m using it to establish my life’s priorities.
Growth in these areas, in this specific order, is very important.