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Belt Buckle: Actions Always Speak Louder Than Words

 

“It’s simple,” the all-star defensive lineman explained.

“The great ball carriers like Jim Brown or Gale Sayers fake with their eyes, they fake with their heads, fake with their shoulders. But they can’t fake with their belt buckle. Wherever that’s going, that’s where they’re going.

“I just watch their belt buckle.”

When I was young I asked many girls at my high school to go out with me. Since I was not every woman’s dream date—all right, I was president of the chess club—my invitations were refused, often indirectly.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, but I’m busy next Friday night.”

“How about Saturday night?”

“Let’s see. No, I guess I’m busy then, too.”

“A week from Saturday?”

“I really can’t commit that far in advance.”

I cringe now when I think of how many years it took me to realize that while her words were polite, each woman’s belt buckle just wasn’t going to head into my VW Bug.

With this realization I started down the path to understanding that words, including words of promise, are not the same as performance.

It’s human nature to avoid a situation you think might be unpleasant, especially, for me, direct confrontation. That’s why words and actions often diverge.

“The check is in the mail” is not the same as the check itself.

“I’ll call you tomorrow” is not the same as calling tomorrow.

I’m sure you have had similar experiences, and may have reached a similar conclusion. On a deeper level, which we may not even be consciously aware of, when words and actions diverge there is an injury on both sides of the belt buckle. How many times can my actions fail to line up with my words before the sum of my small deceits takes its toll? How often can I dodge the truth of my own intentions by saying to myself, “Oh, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings,” before I lose the connection with my own heart?  Before I become a living contradiction?

Why do we act this way? Why aren’t we forthright, with our words and actions (our belt buckle) moving in sync?

It’s clear to me that we avoid saying our own truths out loud because we attempt to avoid rejection and allow our personal insecurities to overrule the silent truths that always live in our hearts.

I want to rely on both your words and your actions.  I focus on your belt buckle because I want to be safe. I want to banish the unknown and accurately predict my future with you.

My dad says that if you’re willing to promise something you should be willing to write it down and sign your name to it.

I am grateful for my relationship with my father.  Dad’s belt buckle often rode in my VW Bug with me. In fact, he was there simply because I thought about him and felt his presence. Relationships are like that. They are always with you. Harmony of thought and action, repeated over the years, nurture strong relationships. We have the opportunity to know ourselves more and more as we make our way in this world, and injuries can heal if we are not reinjured by constant reappearance of small or large deceptions.

I sometimes wonder if, for a week, I should write down all of my promises. How high would that stack of stated intentions be, and how often would my actions match that stack? Consciously or not, we each wrestle with this problem. We can duck and weave, fake with our eyes, our shoulders, and especially our words as that opposing lineman of truth looms over us, but the belt buckle always reveals the authentic tale of who you and I really are.

I can be tricked by words, but I’m seldom fooled by actions. Be careful, Jim Brown. I’m watching your belt buckle.

Alan

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Get Past Perfect

 

I used to be a partial perfectionist.

I say “partial” because certain aspects of my life, such as my clothing, weren’t especially important to me and I didn’t need them to be perfect.

I say “perfectionist” because often I would settle for nothing less than that ideal. In high school I wanted the highest grade in every class. When I began practicing law I wanted each letter or agreement to be perfectly composed and perfectly typed, and that was in the days before word processing equipment made at least the typing relatively easy.

After a few years running my own law office I learned the hard way that I was a hopeless prisoner of perfection. Some of the troubles I encountered in that particular trap were:

1. Perfection was costly. I was paying my secretary a lot of money to retype letters so they had absolutely no visible erasures.

2. My output was less than perfect because perfection took a lot of time.

3. I was always dissatisfied with my own work and the work of everyone else in my office. This meant work wasn’t much fun either for them or for me.

4. I procrastinated. When I faced a new project, such as handling my first probate, I was afraid I wouldn’t do it perfectly. So I put it off for so long that my client finally took the file to another attorney.

5. I often fell short of my goal. I found that I couldn’t be perfect— at least, not very often. I was disappointed in myself. I was a failed perfectionist.

A year or two later I realized even more fully that the quest for perfection carries a high price. When I bought my first office computer, an IBM 5110, I needed software so I hired Peter, a young computer programmer.  He was a robust perfectionist.

Peter began work in March. For months we worked together into the night. Peter was marvelous. Every week he invented a new shortcut or proposed an even more elegant algorithm. Peter was a genius, and I was certain that eventually he would create a program that would be the envy of the industry.

 “Eventually.” Spring passed into summer. Soon it was Thanksgiving and we seemed no closer to using the wonderful product of Peter’s inspiration than we had been in March.

“Peter, when do you think you’ll be finished? We’re going to have to start using the computer in our business.”

“Just a few more months. I’m working on some entirely new functions which will really speed up the processing time.”

“Okay, but we really need to finish.”

Peter programmed on. And on. Nights and weekends he haunted our office. I found him hunched over the miniature video screen at 7:00 a.m. Monday morning and at 11:00 p.m. Saturday night. Takeout bags from McDonald’s littered his desk. Peter was a workaholic.

Perfectionists often are. They have to be.

On December 15th I faced a decision. Either we would begin using our computer, which had now been sitting in our office for almost a year, on January 1st, or our accounting department would have to spend the next three weeks preparing manual records and forms for the new year. I talked to our extraordinary programmer.

“Peter, the computer goes live on January 1st.”

“No way.”

“We’re going to do it.”

“Alan, I don’t see how.”

“Peter, we have to start using what you’re working on. If we don’t, I’m going to immediately have to start three people preparing manual records for next year. And if we don’t start using the computer in January we’re going to have a horrible mess trying to combine the first few months of manual records with computer accountings for the rest of the year.”

“I understand, but I want to make the program as good as it can possibly be. I need more time. Maybe by March 1st,” he offered.

“January 1st. Not negotiable. If it’s less than perfect, so be it.”

Peter sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The following January 7th we went live on our new computer. The programming gods must have been smiling because the transition was surprisingly smooth. Our new program was certainly less than perfect, but it worked just fine.  Happily, we had moved past perfect.

When my daughter Heather was six she came into my den to visit, and showed me two of her drawings. “This is the fast drawing, and this is the slow drawing,” she said.

“Is that because you drew one fast and one slow?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I liked both drawings. Heather liked to have fun, and was not concerned with perfection. As a result, I think she came closer to perfection than I did.

I have nothing against perfection, especially when I’m flying at 37,000 feet in an airplane. But I know that my life is more fun, and more productive, when I am able to Get Past Perfect.

Alan

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5 Tips for Effective Delegation

I am working at my desk. I hear a soft chime, and up pops an e-mail from one of my investors. He’s asking the same question he has already asked me three times in the last two months ago. It would take me an hour to research and answer his question, just as it would have taken me the first time he asked. Now my investor is upset and I am under increasing pressure to perform. What to do, what to do?

Delegate!!

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