“Our inability to deal with unpleasantness in life all goes back to the invention of the flush toilet.” That was the thesis of a great book entitled The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade by Thomas Lynch, a Milford, MI funeral director. Lynch notes that in the old days when people died, their family took care of preparing the body at home, and that the unpleasantness of death was buffered by preparing the  loved one’s body for burial. Life included death. 

With the advent of the flush toilet, came a shift in the human psyche, Lynch posits. The flush toilet got rid of life’s unpleasantness with the push of a lever, and thus began the softening of our ability to deal with the many unpleasantries that are part and parcel to the human experience.

People laugh, or look at me weirdly when I tell that story. However, I think Lynch is on to something. I grew up around a funeral home; drawn their by a young lass with whom I was smitten. My first kiss came on the doorstep of a funeral home. Didn’t seem weird to me. She was very much alive! Through the years I occasionally helped to move a body or to deliver the daily dead to another town. I remember when the congressman I’d grown up hearing about as a hometown hero came home in a casket. We opened it and found that when they prepared bodies in Washington D.C. they posed them with their heads turned to face out of the casket. I remember watching as Gary (the funeral director and father of the lass) grabbed the congressman’s head and proceeded to turn his neck until he was facing the direction that dead people were supposed to face in our little town.

I grew up on the farm, and value the lessons I learned there greatly. Death, life, sex, hard-work, economics, it was all there on the farm. It created in me a “rootedness” and a sense of “balance” and understanding of the rhythms of life that I value greatly and am attempting to pass on to my kids through the same farm experiences. But my learning didn’t end on the farm, and it extended past the funeral home. I remember being a Medical Explorer at Cox Hospital when I was 16 years old. Suddenly I was thrust into the delivery room with wailing mommas seeing things I’d never seen before. I remember standing by the bedside of an elderly woman as she took her last breathe. All of these things mixed into the milieu that was my growing up and that have served me well as a pastor, an advisor and counselor, a teacher, a Dad and friend.

So, why do I bring this all up? Unpleasantness, that’s why. In soft America we’ll go far to avoid unpleasantness. We lie and don’t tell the truth to each other because it’s more comfortable to tell the lie than to risk the outburst that the truth might elicit. We tolerate underperformance from our peers and disobedience from our kids because we value faux peace over the clarity and accomplishment that truth and discipline would produce. We don’t fight for truth, because the fight is unpleasant. Case in point: I heard a guy from Minneapolis today on CNN talking about how wars can’t be won, so we shouldn’t fight them because the costs are so high. Hmmm. Let’s think about that a moment. If we used his logic we’d still pay allegiance to the King of England, Obama would likely be a slave instead of the President, and all of Europe would be under control of Hitler’s offspring. Detestable as it is, I think there’s a place and a time for the unpleasantness of war. And confrontation. And moral absolutes.

My house has seven flush toilets. I wouldn’t take for my indoor plumbing. I’m infinitely glad there’s no chamber pot under our bed. But I’m not afraid of unpleasantness. When I know it is lurking, I seek it out so that it can be resolved.

Embrace the unpleasantness. Make the best of it. Learn to deal with it. If you need help, take a look in the toilet. But don’t forget to flush.

I ask myself that question ALL THE TIME. Occasionally I like the answer. Sometimes I don’t. Usually I just don’t know for sure. But in a recent time of reflection I concluded the answer is YES!  I am/We are making a difference. Here’s some examples:

• There’s a guy who works on our corporate team who as of August has made twice as much money as he made in an entire year in his old job. In the two years he’s been with us he’s hated me (not literally), been offended plenty of times (it really hacked him off when I told him he wasn’t a salesman, he was just an “order taker,” but then he came back later and said “you were right”) and on occasion been beaten on (again, not literally) mercilessly. But today he sent me an email and said “I am amazed at how far financially I have come, having achieved monetary feats I didn’t even think were possible” and “I also think about how much better I am in my work, how much stronger an overall employee I am. I owe it all to you two.” He got that almost right. He is a stronger employee, but much more he is a stronger person. He’s changed the way he thinks, and from those thoughts have flowed the progress he’s made in his life. he’s made progress in part because he’s adopted the posture of a learner. (My friend Ernie Hughes says “The enemy of learning is knowing.”) He wrote to me today “When you submit, it is a lot of fun, as I learned this year.” But probably what made me feel the best was a few weeks ago when he told me about taking his family on a day trip to a theme park and about how it was no longer a financial stress for him to be able to do that.

We’re making a difference!

• There’s a husband and wife who are both members of our team. She’s starting her 13th year with us, and her husband has been with us 10 years. They are great people, the kind the world needs more of. At age 40, having never had children of their own they decided to adopt. Soon thereafter they became parents of three siblings, a 9 year old daugther, a 13 year old son, and a 14 year old daughter! Wow! Several weeks ago while talking about the kids she spoke of their strong financial status and about the things she’d learned and about the way her thinking had changed during her time on our team. She cried as she said “You’ve made this possible.” I think she overstates the case. But certainly God has blessed many of our team members financially and intellectually, particularly in the past few years as we’ve stretched and grown in ways none of us ever imagined.

We’re making a difference!

• There are over a 100 people (maybe closer to 150) who have food in their belly and a roof over their head paid for as a product of their work on our team. I’m proud of that fact alone. But I’m also proud that during a time of great economic turmoil when many are without jobs, these people—mostly in the construction trades of all places—are making more money than most of them ever have in their lives.

We’re making a difference!

• I finally got to spend some time with a guy who has worked for us off and on for a couple of years. In our conversations about life and God I discovered he didn’t understand what it meant to have a relationship with God through Jesus’ substitutionary penalty payment of death on the cross. Through our conversations he came into a relationship with Jesus, began attending church, and began studying his Bible.

We’re making a difference!

• A lady came in to interview for a job; one that I’m not sure we have available. When I asked her why she said “Because Shawn has told me this is a great place to work.”

We must be making a difference!

• One of our subcontractors took my partner to lunch today just to say thank you. He is planning a cruise with his family. Couldn’t ever have done it up until now because he didn’t have the money. He’s making more money today than he ever has in his life. They got into a big discussion about kids and my partner was able to teach him about instilling confidence in his children. Hmmmm. Confidence—one of the key components of our Core Values which are practically a “Statement of Faith” at our company.

Sounds like a difference to me!

• A middle-aged executive just resigned from a 14 year carreer at one of the world’s largest accounting firms to join our management team. I don’t know what was in his cool-aid but he must think we’re making a difference.

I’ve always wanted to make a difference.

To tell the truth, I probably have always defined making a difference in spiritual terms………masses of people developing faith in Jesus……or in miraculous terms……people being healed……..or in physical terms like providing for orphans or medical care for tribal people in the jungle. We’re not doing much in those areas. But we’re still making a huge difference.

In recent months I’ve began to see how we can take money I’ve previously been advising clients to mail off to Wall Street and instead keep those dollars working here at home through a concept called “Local Dollars Making a Local Difference.®” My clients like it, it makes a difference in our community, and just this week a banker from Arkansas told me how Walmart—the mass retailer—is pioneering a similar “back to local” project. What we’re doing with this “local” thing is going to pay huge dividends in our community and for our clients. It’ll really make a difference!

When it comes to making a difference, if I told the truth it would probably be that I always wanted to be Billy Graham. It appears though that God just wanted Barry Watts. Barry making a difference, teaching his team, sharing a vision, touching people, growing their lives bigger than they thought possible.

I/we are making a difference. It’s a great life! And I’m honored to live it!

A Dios sea la gloria!

Now quit wasting oxygen! Go make a difference!

We can’t all, always, be the least guy in the room. Sometimes, you’re the strongest person in the room; and you should be! That’s why you are here, to help others develop; to use your experiential wisdom to help others more easily navigate life’s path. So there are definitely times you should intentially be the strongest person in a group.

It’s difficult to decide how to invest when someone asks for your help. My method of deciding isn’t perfect, but I do have a criteria for determining whether I’ll invest in somebody or a group of somebodies:

1. Are they learners? If they aren’t oriented toward Core Value #2  Learning & Growing: Collecting Wisdom, then I am being unwise when I invest the seeds of my experience into their life.
2. Can I make a difference? If investing into another person isn’t going to matter because they aren’t going to appreciate and nurture the investment, or because they can’t—don’t have capacity to use what I am teaching them—then I am wasting the seed of my experience by investing it into their life.

You can’t always know in advance whether an investment of time, energy, and experience into someone’s life will be profitable. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes you’ve got to know when to stop throwing good seed after bad, or, in the words of Kenny Rogers “you’ve got to know when to fold ’em.” Sometimes you have to extricate yourself from the situation because you discover the ground you are throwing seeds on is too hard to allow them to sprout, or so weed infested that your influence is choked out. I’m  reminded of that old adage “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.” So I suppose one tip is “listen for the squeeling. When you hear it, that’s a sign you may need to get out of the pig pen.”

Then there are those times when it is right to invest in someone even though there is absolutely no earthly return for our investment. Sometimes it’s about just giving a warm hug, a cold compress, or holding someone’s hand in a comforting way. It’s about being a giver and a blesser; doing for others what they can’t do for themselves. That’s yet a different situation, and that’s an investment we all should be ready to make.

You become like the people you hang out with. They either lower or raise you to their “temperature.” This has always been true. In Acts 3:13 Peter healed a man and it says people “could tell he had been with Jesus.” You become like the people you hang out with.

So, who are you hanging out with?

In the past six months I’ve twice been asked to join Mastermind groups. My first question is always “Who else is in the group?” I want to know whether they are people stronger and better than me, or lesser. I only want to hang out with people who are more knowledgeable, better leaders, wealthier, and more successful. Why? Because that’s how I can increase my knowledge, leadership, wealth and success.

This brings to mind the question:  What kinds of people are you hanging out with?

In my next post I’ll talk about investing time in people who have achieved less than you have.