Applied in a business context, a team that possesses a strong sense of balance performs well under pressure and is not buffeted nearly as violently by the winds of change and external competitive pressures compared to a team that lacks a keen sense of balance. But what does balance look like in business?

What was different this time is how struck I was by the meaningfulness of the military honors ceremony. Ray served his country dutifully in the 1950s. Seventy years later, a corps of individuals—most of whom are retired and likely did not know Ray personally—dedicated their morning to seeing Ray off with a fitting salute. Wow.

So today’s lesson is this. Yes, as a leader, people are going to talk about you. Someone is probably talking about you right now. The good news is that you have control about what they’re saying and the irony is that you’ll sleep better and your ears will stop buzzing if you’re transparent, authentic, clear, and structured. Oh, and sprinkling in a bit of humility, a sense of humor, and a dash of vulnerability won’t hurt either.

I know from personal experience as a leader that teams who believe their jobs are at risk or who’s pay is uncertain do not perform at their peak abilities. The constant threat of being let go or of not getting paid looms over the team like a dark gray cloud. When the rumors swirl that x team is going to be downsized or y operating unit is going to be shut down, productivity grinds to a crawl.

Mentors in my life would often tell me: “Nobody likes a complainer,” and I’m sure you can close your eyes and think back to a former or current colleague who’s poisoned the team with their incessant complaining about every gory detail of their existence.

In a healthy team or organization, there is a spirit of learning and continuous improvement that is shared by each individual. There is shared purpose, strong communication, a sense of stewardship, well-defined goals and standard work, cross-training, backups, smooth handoffs, empowerment to pull the Andon Cord (to stop the assembly line in the case of an issue), and a laser focus on delighting the customer.

The second is that sixty is a time in one’s life when you can look back and see with relative clarity things that you’ve done and will never do again. Some things you don’t want to do again and others you can’t because entropy has begun to take the upper hand. At exactly the same time, sixty is a time when you can look forward to a canvas of opportunity to make a difference and experience life with vigor and purpose. There’s a certain sense of urgency to live life to the fullest since the end is assuredly closer than the beginning.

Today, we have come to expect and demand that friction points in the delivery of a product or service are minimized and that modern technology is applied to improve the customer experience—even in industry or product segments where margins are thin and competition is fierce. Well, this morning I have a customer service story of a company and industry segment that seems to have missed the memo of modernization and transformation to improve customer experience.

To make the importance of resilience clear, I’ll ask this question. What do you want to be known for? Do you want to be the person who’s able to pick themselves up, take ownership, ask for help when needed, and quickly rise above challenges; or the person who gets upset, falls into an emotional black hole, shifts blame, and doesn’t move forward?

You might be reading this as an early career professional, filled with the sense of invincibility that accompanies those initial two decades of your working life. I can directly attest that these years are gone in what seems like an instant. The ravages of time will catch up to you. If you allow these ravages to get the best of you—if you succumb to comfort—if you allow the recliner to wrap its appealing but selfish arms around you—”old age” will come sooner.

I believe the replacement phrase for constructive criticism is influenced by the relationship between sender/receiver and the depth of knowledge the sender has. In all cases, we should retain the word constructive, as our goal in human discourse should be to build others up and not tear them down.

…but significant sustaining innovations occur in the devices and products we use everyday—this type of innovation can largely go unnoticed. I’d like to address that today by highlighting an innovation I’ve stumbled across that has had a positive impact on me personally—innovation in trimmer string replacement. That’s right, we’re going to talk about trimmer string today!