"Raising the Bar"

Sometimes I like clichés, sometimes I hate them. Mostly I hate. The other day, though, I caught myself daydreaming in a meeting at work. It went something like this:

"I need to “level the playing field” and “think outside the box” because it’s a “hard and fast rule” that I should deliver “world class” “customer service” or “the long and short of it” is it’ll be “the kiss of death” unless I “tie up all the loose ends” and “dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.”

“In the blink of an eye” I will “pull myself up by the bootstraps,” “grit my teeth,” “live and learn,” so that I can “fight another day.” “That’s half the battle” until I hit the “turning point” by “swallowing my pride,” “letting bygones be bygones” and put the “ball in the court” of those that are “dyed in the wool.”

I knew it was all “food for thought,” “in the long run” anyway. But I didn’t want to “beat a dead horse.“ I knew these thoughts were only worth a “dime a dozen” to someone unless they’ve “seen the light” and unless something’s “fallen through the cracks” but by then you find you’ve “crossed the line.” At that point though I realized that “word of mouth” and “idle chitchat” took me to my “hour of need” and I knew if I placed all my “cards on the table” and “entertained high hopes” “wild horses could not keep me away” from “coming up smelling like roses.”

I guess I could have “drawn the line” at being “all talk and no action” because with “every tick of the clock” there was “hell to pay” if I didn’t have “peace of mind” or at least “give it the old college try.” That was just the “tip of the iceberg” though: “Nothing to write home about,” “in a word” you could say. But if you “check it out” what I’m saying is I’m “not too shabby” since “there’s no fool like an old fool.” At the very least “it’s better than sliced bread” if you can just “wake up and smell the coffee (postum).” “Time will tell” I guess. “yada, yada, yada.” “Blah, blah, blah.” I’m not “pulling your leg,” I’m “on the up-and-up.” “For what it’s worth.”

Regardless of what I think of clichés I clearly use them, maybe too much, and maybe too much in jest. I guess it’s a love-hate thing. I’m titling this blog by a cliché though because the practical reality is that “raising the bar” is the only way I can figure out how to get across the point of how we all need to set high standards to get us from wherever we are in life to a higher and better place.

So what I’m saying is clichés do communicate messages to us. The only problem with them is that we get used to hearing them so often, we stop considering what they really mean. So let me try and break “raising the bar” a little more so it isn’t just a cliché, though it is.

Growing up, I shared a room with two brothers. Nights were not a job, they were an adventure. At a young age our ridiculous bedtime would give us like 9 or 10 hours to kill before we could surface back on earth. We did all sorts of stuff. I distinctly remember one activity was to play this card game we had. It was called authors. It had nothing to do with authors, other than you had to collect all four of the same author cards to make a set. What it did though is introduce to me the names of some of the greatest authors who ever lived and inspired me later, out of curiosity, to look into their works and find out more about them. Alfred Lord Tennyson was one of these authors. His name and grizzly appearance made him memorable.

The guy was amazing. At 12 he composed his first epic poem of 6,000 lines. At 12, I hadn’t read 6,000 lines. After that he got prolific. One of the last things he wrote, considered to be his epitaph, was my favorite. It’s a short poem called "Crossing the Bar." It’s could have been called “raising the bar.” Alfred loved it also and left instructions that it was to be placed at the conclusion of any collection of his writings. Consider some of his words:

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

When we “cross the bar” we will probably hope we had it “raised” as high as possible. I recently read an interview about a young and very successful man in Tel Aviv. His name is David Tur and he is one of a new generation who are putting the violence and sadness of the Jews and all that is going on in the Middle East behind him and pushing himself upward and onward to new heights.

He is a fascinating character and I would never embrace or encourage others to celebrate their bar raising efforts as he does but his style was interesting. Each time he felt he raised the bar in his life and accomplished something, he got a tattoo. That’s not too unusual these days, but his are very personal to him and had a lot of meaning. He considers his tats stars and he has five already in his less than thirty years of life. Most are just for him and not visible to others.

Under his arm is an ace of spades reminding him that during a real tough time in his life he had a surprise up his sleeve (he doesn’t share what that was however.) Above his wrist (the only visible one) are the words “senseless conflict”. He had this one done at seventeen, much too his parents dismay. The reason seems obvious. His parents thought this was his first but he actually had one done a year earlier. His parents didn’t know because it was on the inside of his lower lip. It is the words “No Pain,” ironically he said “it was one hell of a pain to have it done.” There are two others he won’t talk about. His point is he will always strive to raise the bar and each time it’s raised in a monumental way; he will celebrate it in this unique way.

Don’t do what David does but take the inspiration from his experience about striving for personal bests.

The supreme rule of survival on the high seas was always to follow your compass and where it would lead you. We should do the same. We should discipline ourselves to always follow what we know is the right thing regardless of what we see or hear about what others think the correct action might be. I think the best word describing this compass is integrity.

Integrity is Latin from the word integritas, meaning "whole" or "oneness." It is the discipline to follow one’s moral and ethical compass regardless of circumstances. It might be the one common denominator of all great people.

We’ve probably all seen how effective this one characteristic is and the difference it makes wherever it is found. People with integrity “raise the bar” throughout their life and it gets real high and they keep it there. Nobody makes them do it. How could they? And once you have the bar at a certain level, you don’t cave in or lower it for anyone or anything.

But every day in the world, in a hundred different ways, some lose their compass and get lost. Some pile up waste-high fibonacci troubles while others navigate brilliantly through the same challenges and keep the bar up high and even raise it higher.

Those “raising the bar” have this internal compass and follow it. Those who don’t ever “raise the bar” have compasses, but they are broken. Isn’t that the worse situation we could be in? To have a compass and think it is working and you discipline yourself to follow it, but you are headed for a disaster because your compass is broke. Clearly we all have the responsibility to make sure our compass is working and then follow it. This will keep us safe and on track and only then will we have the confidence to “raise the bar” “higher and higher.”