Prune your Plum tree

The Plum Tree                     

(This story is retold with permission)

Today was the last LifePlan review for a friend.  A LifePlan is a two-day, introspective look into where you are, where you’ve come from and where you must go based on your collective learning.

My experience as a LifePlanner has taught me the high value of ongoing coaching and accountability for those who complete the LifePlan process. At the recommendation of another LifePlan facilitator, I desire to stay in a coaching relationship for one year after the LifePlan. 

Today, I was holding the last review for a friend who’s LifePlan was exactly 1 year ago. When we were creating the LifePlan, he confessed, “Tommy I don’t know how to refuel; I simply can’t. I know it’s not scriptural to always be focused on work but I don’t know any other way.”

From experience, I know we are not designed for going without rest. More than just rest, we need to refuel. For me, it’s the mountains. I can’t explain it other than my batteries get fully charged when I spend time in the mountains. Many of my LifePlanners describe water or the ocean or simply time outside as their places of respite. Almost always, people will describe a need to be in nature or something similar as a means to find true re-creation.

I believe from my core we all need this time to truly find a means of balance in all domains of our lives. Pastors are particularly bad at this. Maybe that’s another blog.

Anyway, my friend told me a great story today.  As a result of our coaching call last quarter, he went outside and worked in his yard. He agreed to “practice” finding ways to refuel. One particular project was to prune a plum tree.  Today, in our review, he remembered he was to send me pics to prove he had done it (I had heard promises before and wanted proof!). In preparation for our review, he discovered the pics he had failed to send.  It made him smile inside and out. Yesterday, he and his wife sat in their back yard and admired the fruit of his labor from last fall. The plum tree he had pruned is loaded with a bumper crop of plums.

Today he said, “I think I found my refueling spot.”

Prune your plum tree.

Peace for your way,

T.

Giving up? Clear View for LifePlanners Issue 3

The following is written by Pete Richardson (www.convergenceplanning.com ). Pete has immersed himself in the full body of Tom Paterson’s work. I am reprinting this blog, with permission, as it exemplifies the life well lived in surrender or as Tom recently defined it “reverent submission”.



From Pete: “But if you were to cut Tom Paterson, he would bleed surrender. He lost his 12 year

old daughter, Debbie, to bone cancer in the 1970’s. Tom Paterson Jr. drowned in Alaska at age 36 when his float plane flipped on a lake. Jim Paterson was killed a year ago when a car hit him while helping a woman broken down on a Virginia highway. Ginny Paterson, Tom’s first wife, died of lung cancer in the late 1990’s after 54 years of marriage. Meryl Paterson, Tom’s second wife, died last year of Alzheimer’s. He knows something about moving on from life’s losses. Today, you’d never know from his view of life and positive attitude that he has suffered so.



We all face loses of some kind. Suffering, pain, trials, and tests face any hairy biped traveling through time. But what allows a man who has experienced SO much loss in his lifetime to have peace of mind and soul? To have no observable signs of bitterness toward God, life, other people, the world in general?



Surrender.



The concept of surrender invokes quitting, giving up to an enemy. It’s usually applied to competition or combat. “The enemy surrendered.” “The team gave up. Surrendered.” Surrender evokes the imagery of the defeated waving a white flag waving out of the trenches of conflict communicating, “We’re done. We’re laying down our guns.”



There is a time to fight for that which is noble, right, honorable and just. Where would the world be had Churchill and Roosevelt surrendered to the German dictator? Where would our nation be had Lincoln quit in his relentless pursuit of the human dignity and freedom of the enslaved and the integrity of the Union? “



To read the full body of this excellent understanding of surrender go to Pete’s ‘Plog’ at

www.convergenceplanning.com



For those who have completed the LifePlan process, we know to come to fully enjoy the Joy of Christ, we first must come to the place of complete yielding of our own will and demand on our life for the ultimate will of Christ. How is this achieved? All of life is a process and the process of surrender is no different. It is a process. As Linda Brewer pointed out so eloquently in Issue 1, the outcome of yielding our will is the receiving of the Life and Joy of Christ. It’s a process that begins with a choice.



Have you decided to stop telling God what you are going to do and let Him lead?



Are you struggling with the concept of ‘giving up to gain’?



I invite you to continue the conversation with me at www.foraclearview-tmoore.blogspot.com



Do you know others who may benefit from learning more about LifePlans and Strategic Operating Plans? If so I encourage you to forward clear view to 3 friends





Tommy

Clear View - Perspective

Jan 2010






Welcome to the First Edition of Clear View. Clear View will be a regular commentary from me about all things Strategic that I see from my practice of Strategic Operating Plans and LifePlans

Let’s get grounded with a few definitions. As a founder trained and certified Paterson Associate, we learn strategy is ‘managing tomorrow, today’ and operating is ‘managing today, today’. A successful strategy requires both a clear sense of where we are going and the actions necessary to get us there. The more I practice the Tom Paterson Strategic Plan Process™, the more it is reinforced there are no neutral decisions. Every decision everyone is making in the organization moves us closer to or further away from our envisioned destiny.

It all begins with perspective. Another definition: ‘Perspective is the clear, undeterred truth of where we are today and how we arrived here.’ There is no plan without perspective. I know that is a strong statement but it is a statement grounded in truth. We gain perspective by completely understanding our present reality. Often I will have prospective clients tell me where they want to take their organization. I’ll ask them “How do you know? What process did you use to eliminate distraction, personal bias, and other possibilities that may distort our truth?”

An example from a Paterson associate; As each hour of a Strategic Operating Plan went on, my friend could see the owner becoming less inviting of others points of view. Slowly he could feel them shutting down to the point it was basically a dialogue between he and the owner. This continued into the second day. The morning of the third and final day, my friend met the owner for an early breakfast. He shared his observations to which the owner quickly confessed. He struggled with the changes of the company, direction, and the needs of employees for freedom and trust. Wisely, my friend suggested that the owner share his thoughts and fears with the rest of the team. He did and the plan came together beautifully.

As we enter the New Year, where do you need organizational clarity? Need assistance?…Let’s talk. Tommy