Run toward the fire

The tendency is to move toward the easy, avoid conflict, delay hard decisions, silo the fires, hoping that avoidance will solve the issue.

Right now, your transparency, your action, your decision, can change someone’s life. Making the call that you need to make, having the conversation that you need to have, addressing the situation that needs to be addressed, will impact others.

Avoidance is a trap.

Sales cures all. Not really. Strong performance can hide flaws that need to be dealt with for longterm sustainability. The tendency is to avoid the fire by celebrating the victories. Friction in the company doesn’t go away with high performance. It will only grow the longer the fire is left burning.

When something is off with my spouse, the easy thing is to focus on the great things in our marriage, as if a date together, forgetting the issue, will make everything go away. The hard thing is to stop the busyness of life, throw the issue on the table, and work through it.

The avoidance trap hurts others.

One’s health. If I avoid the one area that I need to change, longterm those that love me will pay the price. One’s faith. If I don’t persevere but avoid, I am at risk of inadvertently teaching my kids indifference. One’s money. If I focus on the present, where everything is working, without laying out the potential risk of the future and that area that is not working, many may be hurt.

With avoidance being the trap, complacency is the result. Avoidance becomes the new normal, and it becomes okay. Fires remain smoldering. Teams, marriages, companies, friends, families pay the price.

The solve is to run to the fire. Address the difficult. Step up to the situation. Don’t shrink back.

As I was talking to a guy yesterday, the topic turned to avoidance in the digital world in our difficult conversations. The text is easy, but the spark of the fire remains. The email is quick, but the meaning may be misinterpreted and the message misses the mark. Sometimes, even the phone call or, yes, the zoom meeting, is avoiding the face-to-face conversation that needs to happen.

The difficult conversations in today’s world are handled digitally, a hidden avoidance.

Run to the fire. Sit across the table from someone and talk. Throw the issues on the white board. Be willing to sit in the messiness with another. Stop the flow of life, and walk through the fire with your spouse, your children, your teammate.

The fire that one does not have the courage to address today will burn the ones we love most tomorrow.

Think through the certain fires that are in your work life, your family, and with you personally that need to be met with transparency.

Others will thank you later for the courage not to shrink back.

Impact others. Live generously.

Hebrews 10:32-39