Maurilio Amorim

Category: personal growth

Why I Need Balance

I struggle with finding balance in my life. I’m driven, performance oriented and competitive. Those traits don’t mix well with balance, but I understand that without balance in my life, I tend to focus on the urgent and forget to take care of the important.

I’ve heard someone say recently that balance is overrated. Throw caution to the wind and, as the romantics would say, “carpe diem.” But what a balanced life ultimate offers all of us is the ability to look soberly at our circumstance as well as to where we are headed. Balance tells us that we are working too hard, or neglecting loved ones, or that we are not spending enough time and resources to those who cannot help themselves. A balanced person looks at the dashboard of his or her life where the physical, emotional, spiritual and relational gauges tell a complete story.

It’s easy for me to go full throttle on performance-driven areas of life life professional and even physical and neglect the others. But we were created to live balanced lives and when we don’t, there’s always a price to pay. Often it’s a much greater price than we ever thought.

I am writing this post mostly as a reminder to myself that I must take a sober look at all the gauges of my life even those I often neglect.

How do you create balance in your life?

June 2, 2011
Half-Hearted Self Discipline Fails to Deliver

Self discipline pays dividends. In my life I have seen self discipline become the difference between getting an A or a C in school, between doing ok at work or getting promoted quickly, between a mediocre business and a thriving one, between thinking about running a marathon and actually finishing one. Discipline is often the difference between success or failure. But if we are not careful, we can be disciplined and yet not see results.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to play mind games with the things that require my full attention to get to the next level. I’m usually willing to be disciplined in the areas that come natural to me, like exercise, but I often have a tough time committing to pay the price and do what’s not an easy task for me, like having a consistent clean diet. In this case, however, the diet is the more important of the two. Proper nutrition will fuel performance and accelerate the hard work during exercise. Without it, exercise lose its effectiveness and we face diminishing returns for our efforts.

How many hours have I wasted at the gym because my diet worked against me? What kind of gains could I have seen had I been as disciplined with my eating as I was with my workouts?

The price of success, whether be at the gym, at work, or in ministry, is more often a combination of self discipline in several different areas of our lives, and not just the areas that we are most comfortable with. Working late might come easy for you, but you might not be willing to push yourself to engage people and have the conversations that will help your job performance and career way more than all the spreadsheets and reports you can generate.

Stop for a second and take inventory. If you’re like me, there’s an area in your life that you need to commit to be fully in. It might be spiritual, physical, professional or relational. While you’re putting in the effort somewhere, you know that ultimately is not going to be enough to get you to the next level.

What area(s) of your life needs more self-discipline? What would it take for you to do it?

May 23, 2011
Could a Fitness Goal Help Your Career?

Sometimes we need goals that have nothing to do with our careers, financial future or performance. From time to time I find myself focusing on seemingly inconsequential, somewhat irrelevant goals that from a glance can be seen as a distraction from some of the critical parts of life. For me these usually are fitness goals: run a marathon, have my personal record on a race, do a certain number of pull ups or drop to single digits in my body fat (if you know how much I love to eat, you’d know that’s almost an impossibility). So why bother with them, you might ask. Here’s what these goals do for me.

Forced disciplined. I’m a disciplined person by nature, but when I’m focusing on a fitness goal I get in a whole new level of commitment. Interestingly, that discipline spills over other areas of my life including professional and relational.

Broken routine. One day you wake up and life is a series of predictable activities. I often find myself going through my daily routine without much thought or focus. The interjection of a new goal, by the nature of it, disrupts the status quo and forces me to do things differently, and more importantly, intentionally.

Heightened performance. I found out that each time I met my fitness goals there was a major psychological boost in my professional performance as well. I cannot quantify it, but a shift happened in my thinking that simply says “if you can accomplish this, you can take the next challenge in your professional career.” These fitness goals somehow transferred a sense of confidence to other areas of my life, embolden me to get past performance and thinking plateaus.

For me, reaching these goals give e more than just a sense of accomplishment, a plaque and a t-shirt. These are personal morale and productivity boosters that help me work through the moments I might feel stuck or not sure of my own abilities to go to the next level.

Have you experienced anything similar? What was the outcome?

May 11, 2011
Before You Quit Your Job

We all have thought about quitting our jobs because we just can’t take the pressure, the abuse or both, and life is miserable. Some of us have actually done it. Several times. I remember lying in bed years ago and thinking of the different scenarios on how to quit my job. I was planning the perfect way to finally let my boss know what I really thought of him. But for the majority of us who walk away from a job because of frustration, we seldom quit because of ideological, organizational or even monetary issues. The truth is that we don’t quit our job; we quit our boss. Before you walk in and give notice along with a piece of your mind, consider this:

Incompetent people don’t last. In most organizations incompetence only lasts for a while. Granted, some places have a higher tolerance for poor performance than others, but the weak link eventually gets replaced. If your frustration stems from working for an incompetent person, you just have to outlive their tenure. Do your job well and stick around. Your promotion might be coming sooner than you realize.

There is no such a thing as the perfect environment for you, or anyone else for that matter. For your work nirvana to exist, only perfect people would be allowed to work there. And the day you and I show up at the place, perfection would cease. Sometimes we are as quick to idealize another environment as we are to vilify our current one.

Bad days happen. That’s just life. Even the brightest of environments is not immune to dark days, sometime a string of bad days or projects, and clients from hell. Don’t ever make a life-altering decision at the end of a taxing and discouraging day. An emotional decision is one you’ll always regret.

Leave well. If you must leave, then do it well. As much as you want to let you boss know what you think of her, this is not the time to do that. No one ever regretted being gracious and walking away with dignity and poise even if you know you’ve been wronged. The truth will eventually come out. It always does.

Sometimes you need to walk away from a bad situation, or should I say, from a bad boss. I did once, and it was the right thing to do. However, before you do, make sure it’s the right move at the right time done in the right way.

Have you ever quit a job? How did it go?

May 5, 2011
What To Do With a Bad Day

I thought I was getting out on an early flight home. Time was tight but this was a small airport and my gate was literally less than 10 feet from security. I heard my name called over the intercom as I was collecting my bags. The TSA agent wanted to do extra screening of one of my bags, of course, so I stepped aside, made eye contact with the gate agent and yelled out “I’m here. I’ll be there as soon as they let me go.”

Within a couple of minutes I was ready to board. I didn’t expect what I heard, “Sorry, the flight is closed. You’re going to have to take the next one.” “You have got to be kidding me!” I was just incredulous. “Didn’t you see and hear me?” I asked the agent who didn’t bother looking up from the computer. “I waited over 4 minutes.” She didn’t budge. I will not write down the thoughts that flooded my mind on what to say to this woman. The only thing I said was “one day when you’re trying to get home you’ll run into someone like you and you’ll know how this feels like.”

But this is not a blog about the bad service experience from the American Airlines agent, but what happened afterwards. Moments later I had a great exchange with a couple of young people at the snack area across from the gate. They witness my whole ordeal and were sympathetic: “man, that really stinks.” After much debate and discussion we figured out how to get a low carb, low fat, high protein meal out of their limited and mostly fried menu.

As I ate my double turkey wheat wrap, I thought of my predicament, which in light of everything else in life wasn’t much of one at all. I readjusted my attitude and decided that perhaps my purpose in being there longer was to bless instead of blast someone. Trust me, that’s not usually what goes through my mind when I’m stranded in small airports. I got up, walked up to the helpful young man behind the counter and gave him a tip.

A very big tip.

His eyes got big and he looked back at me, and before he could say anything, I said, “thank you for working hard and doing your job well.” Instantly I settled down. Just a few minutes before I was plotting on how to push the sour gate agent downstairs while making it look like an accident, but now I was enjoying the reaction of my new best friend at the snack bar. “This has turned out ok,” I thought to myself.

My personal challenge and I’ll extend it to you as well is a simple one: next time our day doesn’t go as planned, instead of letting the circumstances makes us mad, let’s focus that energy into blessing someone else—particularly someone whom we’ll never see again. That might just make all the difference.

What’s your most memorable bad day? What happened?

April 19, 2011
You Cannot Be an Original If You Don’t Find Your Voice First

Until we figure out who we are, we are always going to be an imitation of those whom we admire. While emulating our heroes and mentors is not necessarily a bad thing, it always falls short of the original. We must first find our voice in order for us to break away from merely being good at something to being great.

I remember finding my voice as a writer. It was my second semester of graduate school and the long paper I turned in to my adviser was not the strung-together researched quotes with personal commentary woven in. For the first time in my English-writing career I had something to say in my own voice and the research quotes became a distance secondary focus. I noticed a difference in my writing and so did my teacher who wrote, “congratulations you’ve found your voice!” in bold red ink on the cover of the report.

The same process is true for singers, painters, doctors, designers, architects, managers, programmers and most professions. Greatness happens when you stop imitating your inspiration du jour and allow all your professional influences, life experiences, and individual talents to come together in your craft. When that happens, you’re no longer a copy, but an original.

Some discover their voices early in life, while others spend a lifetime imitating. Don’t get me wrong, a good imitation is not a bad thing, but it will never be a masterpiece.

Where are you in your journey in discovering your own voice?

March 31, 2011
It’s Up to Us to Make it Happen

I ran into this video on my friend Jeff Holton’s Facebook wall. It spoke to me deeply. I hope it will speak to you as well.

Have you ever been moved to quit your job and follow your heart?

March 12, 2011
How Gracious Are you Really?

I had to be taught to be gracious. That’s a quality that doesn’t come by naturally to me as I suspect to most guys. After all, our male instinct is to win, get “there” first, hold on tight to what’s ours, fight our way to the top and not to take grief from anyone. Early in life I saw my mother model grace as she gave so much of herself, and of her amazing cooking skills, to family and friends. I have my wife, Gwen, to thank for modeling grace in her relationships and how she deals with people. Interestingly, graciousness has as much to do with giving as it does with receiving. Are you a gracious person? Answer the following questions honestly.

Do you have to win every argument?

Are you able to receive gifts and compliments well?

Do you give expecting something in return? Even gratitude?

How often do you resent people for not being thankful for something you’ve done for them?

How easy is for you to be “done” with a relationship because it’s not reciprocal?

When was the last time you’ve allowed someone else to “win” so they could safe face and not be embarrassed.

How often do you open your home to someone who might never be able to return the favor?

Have you ever reneged on your word because the stakes got too high and you were about to give away more money than you thought?

How many friends do you have who are not in your social-economic demographic?

Being gracious is hard work. At least it is for me. Altruism is easier towards those whom I have never met than it is toward a family member, a client or a friend who doesn’t respond the way I want them to. But I have never regretted backing down when I knew I had the right to push forward for the sake of a relationship. I have never regretted giving regardless of the perceived “appreciation.” Interestingly, human nature being what it is, I still have to fight the urge to attach strings to any kindness I do.

Who’s the most gracious person you know?

March 9, 2011
The Uncertainty and Promise of a New Chapter

As much as we love to talk about the excitement of new experiences and opportunities, we generally don’t like change; we don’t like uncertainty. Think about it, most of the time we’ll:

order our favorite item on the menu

drive home the same way we always do,

sit on our usual pew,

wear our favorite pair of jeans no matter what else we own.

So when our circumstances force us to move out of the comfortable and predictable, we don’t do well. Unwittingly we have subscribed to the philosophical idea that “the evil we know is better than the evil we don’t know.” Sometimes we even feel this way when it’s the uncertainty of something we have anticipated and worked hard to obtain:

Graduating from college

Getting a new job

Adjusting to married life

Moving into a new place

Starting a new venture

Going back to school

Watching your children move out

These life transitions have a way to reset the familiar and force us to learn new skills, meet new people, and grow in order to successfully navigate our new circumstances.

I don’t know where you are today, but most likely there’s a part of your life going through a transition that might be causing you angst. You might not even have chosen to be in this situation, and you hate the uncertainty it creates, but here you are. Like a unfinished book, this chapter is yet unwritten. Every action becomes words on the pages of your life. While you cannot control someone else’s story, you are the one writing your own narrative. I want to encourage you to embrace this new chapter with its ambiguities and uncertainties and write the best part of your story yet.

What chapter of your life are you currently writing?

March 1, 2011
Why Are You Here?

The question was part rhetorical and part inquisitive: “Why are you here?” I was in my second year of college and the exchanged happened because of my asking for an extension on a paper, due to a volleyball tournament on my schedule. I was a bit shocked by the bold retort of my English teacher. I expected her to understand that there was more to life than her class, be gracious and let me off the hook. She didn’t. She jolted me with an existential question that haunts so many of us on a daily basis.

The simple answer was “I’m here to go to college, learn and graduate.” But the bigger life answer is much more elusive. And while I still wrestle with God’s will for my life on a daily basis, I learned something that day that has served me well over the years. Even when I cannot connect all the dots from where I find myself to where I think I want to end up, I can, and should, understand and seize the opportunity that’s right before me. That’s all I have anyway. That’s all we all have.

I moved 6 thousand miles away from home to attend college in Nashville. I had to leave family, friends and even learn a new language to make it work. My parents had sacrificed resources and let go of the elder son so I could pursue what I wanted. And my most important concern was to play volleyball, even thought I was not that great of a ball player.

I have asked the same question of some of my younger friends whom I mentor,”why are you here?” Those who get “it” go on to seize the day and make the most of their current situation so that they’ll be ready for the next challenge and opportunity. They don’t know all the answers but they embrace the challenge and perform to their best. They grow, stretch and are given more.

Unfortunately some decide to “wait” for their ideal situation to present itself. And in doing so, waste opportunities that might never come back around. Call it maturity, grit, hunger, responsibility, passion, but whenever they figure out how to harness the motivation to roll up their sleeves and get the job done, they will open the doors to the life they have searching for.

Where are you today?

February 28, 2011