Imagine for a minute that you are the new chief executive officer of a large corporation. You call in your chief financial officer to give you an overview of the company finances, so you can determine what course to take. The CFO comes in with her charts and graphs and explains in great detail the assets of the company as well as the current liabilities and debt. You listen intently, and when she is finished you thank her for her thorough work. Then you tell her not to bring you information on the company’s liabilities and debts in the future, because while you intend to take full advantage of the assets of the corporation, you are not responsible for the debts that were incurred by your predecessor.

That would be ridiculous. I doubt I could find a single person who would say this is a sound concept, not to mention the fact that it is illegal under U.S. corporate law.

Further, no one I tell this story to would blame the CEO for the corporate debt. This issue is not about blame; it is about responsibility. The new CEO must accept the liabilities along with the assets. You can’t use the assets without taking responsibility for how those assets were generated, including liabilities, debt, and sometimes even associated penalties if the assets were obtained illegally or unethically.

Everyone with me so far? Anyone want to vote to let the CEO use the assets and ignore the liabilities? I didn’t think so….

Now, imagine you live in the United States and you are educated, affluent (this applies to all of you), and for a minute, let’s assume you are white and male. You are enjoying the assets of a cultural system that afforded you different opportunities than it afforded others (for instance, people of color, people who are female, people who have physical or mental differences.) If this is you, is it not reasonable that you would accept responsibility for the means by which these “assets of privilege” became yours?

Remember, you are not necessarily guilty of anything just because you are the new CEO. You committed no crime (that I am aware of) to get into this position, and you are not to blame for other’s actions, although the assets you now enjoy might be subject to penalties if they were ill-gotten. However, you are responsible for making good on the corporate debt.

This musing is the result of something someone said to me a week ago. The subject of race and equity in our society came up in conversation when I suggested that maybe we should accept responsibility for how the social advantages we currently enjoy were previously obtained. The response I got about people who were disadvantaged was, “I never owned a slave, and none of those people were ever slaves.” As if this statement absolved him of any responsibility.

It might have absolved him of guilt, but he cannot shirk from the responsibility any more than the new CEO can ignore the standing debts of his company. Sometimes I feel like a “broken record” (we really mean a “broken record player”) because I keep coming back to the same thing.

If we loved the people around us—not because they earned it, but because they are intrinsically valuable and worthy of our love and respect—this would not be a problem. We need to stop blaming and start helping. We don’t have to be guilty to be compassionate. We don’t have to be the perpetrator to provide restoration. We are all responsible for the community around us. This is a privilege, not a criminal sentence.

Jesus told a story about a man who was travelling and was jumped by bad men, beaten, robbed, and left for dead. Several people walked by this man and did nothing to help as he lay bleeding on the road. They were people who lived near him and were very much like him. Each in their own way justified that they were not to blame for this man’s plight and therefore were not responsible to help him.

Then a man came along who was not from the same town. In fact, he was from another culture, one that the beaten man’s community had shunned and abused. Yet he stopped, tended to the man’s wounds, carried him to shelter and aid, and even paid for the man’s care and housing during his recuperation.

Let’s be clear. The man who helped was not guilty. He did not beat or rob the traveler. The reason he exercised compassion was not because of guilt, it was because he understood his responsibility. Jesus told this story in response to someone asking him who his neighbor was. In other words, who do I have to love? Who am I responsible for? Jesus said everyone.

We do a great job taking care of our Kimray family. We can always improve, but I am very proud of how we care for one another. However, we need to accept responsibility for the assets we enjoy. Our freedom, our privilege, and our potential was acquired at a cost. Those debts need to be paid back with compassion, love, and our best effort to create the same opportunities for others—for everyone.

That’s The Kimray Way.

Wednesday night at 9:37 my granddaughter, Violet Anne, was born. A lovely name for a lovely little girl. Later that evening, as I held her for the first time, she stole my heart. She will have whatever she asks of me or from me, for as long as I live. Holding her and looking at her face as she slept in my arms made me so grateful.

Grateful that I am alive. I often take for granted the miracle of life. Yes, it can be very difficult at times, but it can also be very wonderful. You don’t get to have one without the other. Holding my newborn granddaughter in my arms, a new little human, with all her life ahead of her, reminded me that I am blessed to be here.

Grateful that I get an opportunity to be in this little person’s life. What an honor and a privilege to be able to learn with her and grow with her and walk with her. I suspect she has come to teach me some things, and hopefully I can share some of my experiences with her too.

Grateful that Violet reminds me of the redemptive nature of God. The road of my life had a lot of detours and breakdowns and crashes (and probably still will), but holding Violet is like getting an engine rebuild and all the crash damage repaired. The car of my life feels showroom new when she’s with me.

These things are wonderful and refreshing and life giving. These things are available to us every day.

Every day is a blessing. I have the opportunity to share life with others wherever I go and learn from them. God is always redeeming my life in myriad ways.

I need only open my eyes to see the miracle of life all around me.

I must admit though, it is so much easier to see when Violet is in my arms.

I told someone the other day that my Grandfather, Garman Kimmell, was a philanthropist. I often include that in my description of him when I am relating some part of our story. However, on this particular occasion I found myself wondering what the other person thought that meant.

What does it mean to be philanthropic? Many people think of monetary gifts when they think of philanthropy. Maybe a foundation awarding grants for education or the arts. A wealthy individual or family writing big checks and getting their name in the paper. The word, and the corresponding behavior, seems to be out of reach for many of us.

Philanthropy comes from the Greek philanthropia and means “kindliness, humanity, benevolence, love to mankind.” It means to love your fellow human beings, and to show that care in ways that improve the quality of life, not just by relieving some present pain, but by attempting to address the root of the problem.

This sounds very much like “making a difference” in people’s lives.

Writing big checks certainly could make a difference in people’s lives, but most root problems cannot be solved with cash. It seems that most of our societal problems stem from a failure in relationships. While money can remove some of the barriers to relationship building, only time and physical presence can develop the connections that are needed.

It is difficult to care about someone you do not know. I can drive by the man begging on the street corner without much discomfort because I do not know him. If it was my child, or a friend, or frankly, even an acquaintance, I would be compelled to stop and see what I could do. Without relationship I am able to ignore another’s pain, within relationship I cannot. It is really that simple. The more connected we are, the more motivated we are to “make a difference.”

I am not suggesting that you stop and get to know every person begging on the street. I am suggesting that I have many more opportunities to develop relationships than I seize. I do not have to change the whole world, but I should be changing someone’s world.

Garman didn’t just give people money. He invested himself in their lives, their projects, their outcomes. He was willing to provide the financial means, but he was also intensely interested in the underlying problem. He didn’t just buy band aids, he invested in cures.

For Kimray to be serious about making a difference, our financial gifts need to follow our relational connections. In other words, put our money where our hands and heads and hearts are. Kimray can’t be truly philanthropic without being relational and we need to understand that dollars are only part of the solution.

I challenge you to think of yourself as a philanthropist. Someone who, for the love of fellow human beings, looks for ways to address the root problems which result in pain. With that definition you don’t have to be wealthy, just willing to risk getting involved.

In 1976, Boston released their self-titled debut album. I was 12. The first track on side one is “More Than A Feeling.” Tom Scholz (who was a complete geek and an engineer who became a rock & roll demi god) sings about it being more than a feeling when he hears some old song they used to play. More than a feeling when he remembers people who have come and gone. More than a feeling when he’s tired and thinking cold and hides in his music. More than a feeling.

I was 12. I had no idea what Scholz was talking about, but it was rock & roll and it was awesome.

There weren’t any “old” songs for me. Not many people had come and gone in my life. I wasn’t yet tired and wanting to hide from my world. But I’m not 12 anymore and these things have all become true for me. I hear songs, like “More Than A Feeling,” and sort of get lost for a moment. I routinely run into the memory of a person I knew and loved that is no longer here. I know what it feels like to be tired and thinking cold. It is more than a feeling.

Scholz’s song is filled with regret and longing for something that can’t be regained. Sometimes our lives get that way too. We get bogged down by loss and disappointment and it actually alters us and our perception of the world around us. It isn’t just a feeling anymore, it becomes our life.

It is healthy for me to acknowledge that this happens. It is healthy to allow myself to feel these feelings and visit these places. It is not healthy for me to live there.

About now you are probably thinking, “What is he talking about?”

This weekend the boys and I started working on our 1969 Mustang. It brought back a lot of memories. Working on late 60’s cars in the driveway out in the sun. Rough concrete against your back with dirt and gas dripping on you from above. I remembered my dad showing me how to rebuild the drum brakes on my 65 Chevelle in our driveway on 26^th Street. I remembered friends who have gone, days that can’t be relived and youth that has faded. For a moment or two I was sad.

Then I realized that I was overlaying those old memories with new ones. Attaching new people and new experiences to those objects. In this case, working with my boys on a sunny day in the driveway (shocks, not brakes, but the brakes are next…) From now on, when I am reminded of those things there will be another feeling layered in.

This changes the way I experience other “old” memories. I know I can add to them and alter them in ways that maintains the memory but softens the longing. As I do this, I find myself looking forward to creating new memories around things that are meaningful to me. Building them into better feelings rather than just living in the worn-out home of the past.

Scholz was right. It is more than a feeling. It is life. Life that is meant to be lived, not re-lived.

I was able to take three of my kids to “School of Rock” yesterday. The production was fabulous. The music was fabulous. Spending time with my kids was fabulous. So there is that….

In the musical, there is a number where the kids are singing to their parents in vignettes where the song is thoughts in their heads. I cried. The lyrics combined with the behavior of the parents up to that point was very moving. The refrain says:

I’ve got so much to say,
if only you would listen.
I’ve tried ev’ry which way,
and still you never listen.
Can’t you see I’m hurting?
I couldn’t be more clear.
But I promise,
one day I’ll make you hear.

As I think about all the people in my life, including my wife and kids, I wonder how often I have failed to listen. No, I don’t have to wonder. I’ve failed far more than I have succeeded. I have all kinds of reasons (excuses) that seem reasonable on the surface.

I’m in the middle of something, can we talk about this later?

You don’t understand now, but when you’re older (have calmed down, had time to think about it, know more) you will see.

How are you? (fine) Me too! See ya….

I have dozens more, but I think you get the point. It is easy to dismiss someone else. We even do it without meaning to or knowing we have. It is really hard to listen. To hear what’s not being said. To be quiet long enough for the other person to gather enough courage to speak. To ask the right questions.

At Kimray it can be even harder, both to listen and to speak. We worry about whether it is appropriate to share our personal lives with our co-workers. We are concerned that people will judge us, think (fill in the blank) about us, or dismiss us. We don’t really want to get involved in other people’s problems. We have enough things on our plate. We don’t know what to say.

I am not recommending that we start having counseling sessions with each other. I’m not proposing that we bare our souls to everyone all the time. I’m not even saying that we have to change much.

I am suggesting that I could be more receptive to hearing what another person is really saying. I think I could find the time to actually want to know how someone is doing when I ask. I know that I would benefit from talking a little less and letting others talk a bit more (I might learn something…)

Sooner or later we are all going to be hurting. We all need someone to listen to us, not fix us, just listen. What if no one at Kimray had to “make” someone hear. That would be fabulous.

Super Bowl LII

Tom Brady passed for 505 yds. (record), attempted 48 passes without an interception (record), appeared in his 8th SB (record), set the record for most completions of 20+ yds. in a single SB, and set the record for the most career touchdown passes in super bowls (among many other records personally and as a franchise.)

And the Patriots lost.

How did an underdog team with a backup quarterback win on the biggest stage in the NFL? They played like they had nothing to lose and everything to win. In what will be remembered as one of the most critical plays of the game, the Eagles had a 4th-and-goal from the 1-yard line, and Coach Doug Pederson went for it. They didn’t just go for it, they used a trick play ending in a pass to the QUARTERBACK for a touchdown. I don’t know anything about football and I was impressed.

The rest of the game was similar if not quite as spectacular. Not to take anything away from the Patriots (they’ve been to the SB ten times and won it five) but I found it amazing that right until the end the commentators continued to talk about how Brady could pull it off. They were sure of it. Until it didn’t happen.

I wonder if Brady was sure of it too. He led the Patriots to wins in five of nine trips to the Super Bowl. He was MVP four of those 5 times, and he holds nearly every other major Super Bowl record for a quarterback. He knew how to win. He was used to winning. He expected to win.

But he lost.

I don’t know for sure what Brady was thinking or expecting. I do know that when you are at the top it is easy to make some important mistakes:

You tend to shift from playing offense and trying to gain ground, to playing defense and trying not lose what you have. It is often a subtle change. A slight loss of the edge. A little shift in attention. In a close game it can make all the difference because the underdog is going for broke.

You become complacent about the grinding, difficult aspect of getting better every single day in the hopes of overcoming the competition. You still work hard, but the underdog is working slightly harder. You still train, but you are not willing to risk overtraining, so you don’t get as close to the line as the underdog is willing to.

You forget what it feels like to be hungry. The gnawing emptiness in the pit of your stomach that makes you obsess about your preparation and execution. The underdog has a burning desire to get what he has never had. The underdog has a focus that keeps him alert and sharp.

It is not easy to maintain the focus, drive and hunger necessary to continually improve and grow. Coming off a year of great success, we must be diligent to notice any tendency we might have to throttle back and relax. We need to continue to push ourselves and our systems.

Let’s have Nick Foles’ hunger and drive when we have Tom Brady’s record. That’s how we will best support our customers. That’s how we will impact our community. That’s how we will make a difference for our people.

That’s the Kimray Way.

Sorry for the delay in getting out this musing. I was flying to San Antonio yesterday to meet with the management of a family company with a lot of similarity to Kimray. We are able to learn so much from sharing our histories and operations with other companies that have the same challenges and opportunities we do.

On the plane rides to SA, I read “Reset” by David Murray (thanks to Mike Dudleson for giving me the book.) I highly recommend each of you read it. Murray gives very engaging and easy to assimilate suggestions for how to gain back the margin in our lives that is constantly being eroded by the pressure to perform and produce.

Interestingly, this is part of the trap I was in prior to my collapse. I was burning myself to a crisp trying to outperform the previous day. Murray addresses the false beliefs and value systems as well as the habits and patterns that cause this kind of burnout, and he does it really well.

Then I got to spend the day, and evening, with the CEO of a family business with many of the same historical challenges and current opportunities we have at Kimray. His story was eerily similar to mine. He actually did an interview a while back for a business magazine where he told about having a conversation with God where he finally said, “God, I’ve been doing this my way for my whole life and it’s not working. I’m going to do it your way now.”

This gentleman was able to correct his path before a complete collapse, but so many people don’t.

I didn’t.

It is my intent that Kimray be a place where we are intentional about caring for each other in ways that help limit the chance of someone burning out. Our values, the way we respect and value each other, our work ethics and our environment are all part of how we take care of ourselves.

We can do more, and we will, but each individual is ultimately responsible for their own mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health. I pray for all of you that you will find your worth in who God made you to be, not what you do. I pray that you will pace yourself and create the margin you need each and every day. I pray that together we can continue to create a place where really great work gets done by really great people who also have really great lives.

That’s the Kimray way!

Time is the one thing we are all given equally each day. We cannot carry over unused time from yesterday, nor can we borrow time from tomorrow. Today you will have the exact same 24 hours that everybody else has. It makes no difference how wealthy or poor, old or young, educated or unlearned a person is—they get an equal measure of time.

We don’t get the same number of days. More disturbing, we have no idea how many days we will have.

When my grandfather (Garman Kimmell, founder of Kimray) died, he was certain of what would come next. He knew he would be with his Lord and Savior and he was unafraid of death. He was, however, very concerned that he had not completed everything he had thought of to do or create. He was disappointed that he had run out of days.

When I was young, I would hear “old” people say how their days just flew by. We all know that time is constant unless you are moving very, very fast. So for humans on earth, each day is the same. However, our perception of those days changes.

If you are one year old, another year doubles your life. You perceive that as a long time. By the time you are fifty, another year only adds 2% to your life. That’s not much. Two percent of something goes by quickly. If we compare it to a day, for the one year old it is a whole other day. For the fify-year-old it is 30 minutes. So, as we get older, our perception of time changes and time does seem to “fly by.”

These two facts are cause for me to be more intentional about how I spend the time I have. I can no longer afford to let my life fly by without getting something for the time I am spending. I want a return on that investment. Like my grandfather, I have lot of things I would like to get done and a dwindling number of days left to do them.

However, the most important thing I can spend my time on is other people. Making a difference in someone’s life by being there for them, helping them, serving them, or just doing life with them is where the greatest return is found. When I am near my end, I would like to have a very long list of ideas I didn’t get around to, and an even longer list of people that I did.

Spend your time wisely today.

When I was young and complained that things weren’t “fair” my father would tell me that the fair is in September (which is true if you live in Oklahoma City.) Of course, my claims of inequity only rose when I felt I had been cheated. If I had less, I wanted more. If I had more, I kept my mouth shut.

In “The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die,” Keith Payne writes about his research into the impact of poverty. He makes the claim that people’s feeling of inequality, not their actual income, drives behavior and affects health and happiness. In some of the research he uses, the subjects don’t even necessarily have much variation in actual income or wealth, but are convince by the researchers that they are either better off or worse off than others. The people who believed they were worse off made riskier choices, had magnified perception of racial differences, and rated themselves as ‘unhappy.”

There is a story about a man who owned a business. During the Christmas rush, he needed more workers to get the higher volume of product handled, so he hired some people to help for December. These new hires were grateful to have a job and agreed to work for a certain salary for the month. Before long, the man realized that business was continuing to stay strong and they were not keeping up. He hired some more people and put them to work, promising to pay them a fair wage. A couple weeks before Christmas, they were still behind, so the man hired yet another group and got them working alongside the others. Everyone was working hard and product was flying out the doors, but they were still falling behind, so a few days before Christmas the man hired another group, telling them he would make it worth their time to come to work.

The day before Christmas Eve, as he was preparing to close up, the business owner called all the workers together and started handing out checks. The guys that he hired first eagerly opened their checks to find the amount they were promised when they signed on. Looking over the shoulders of their co-workers, they noticed that the workers that came later in the month were also getting the same lump sum as they did. In fact, the people who showed up just a few days before Christmas got the exact same amount as they had. They were hot. They quickly approached the business owner and began complaining that they had worked harder and longer than everyone else, so they deserved more.

The business owner listened to them, then he asked them a question. “Did I pay you what we agreed?” They answered that he had. He went on, “What business is it of yours what I pay the others then? I gave you what you agreed to, I have the right to be generous with these others if I choose.”

You already figured out that I am retelling a parable that Jesus told. I think there is a very simple, yet profound truth here. When we compare ourselves to others we will always be unhappy. We can always find people who have more than we do and be jealous of them. We can always find people who are worse than we are and be proud of ourselves and our behavior. We can make ourselves miserable by looking around and desiring to be in someone else’s shoes.

Like the people who worked from the beginning, I often think I deserve something. That entitlement mentality causes me a lot of pain. When I think I deserve something, I am not grateful for it and I am resentful if I don’t get it all. Both are terrible positions to live from.

However, if I understand that I am blessed beyond measure and see the things in my life as gifts that I do not deserve, I find myself feeling grateful and full. I find myself thriving instead of surviving. I like that.

Jesus told that parable because some of the people he was talking to thought they deserved God’s favor and others didn’t. The truth was, and is, that no one deserves or can earn God’s favor, love or grace. He gives those to us freely because of who He is, not because of who we are. When I remember that I actually deserve to be punished eternally for my sin, I get pretty grateful that I won’t be. What should happen next is I should be gracious towards others and be willing to invest in their lives as freely as God invests in mine. I’m not there yet, but the goal is progress, not perfection. So, I try to continue to be aware of how blessed I am, and use that awareness to bless others. That’s living. That’s the Kimray Way.