Did you hear the one about the Mom who sent “LOL” regarding the passing of a loved one?

In this case it was the older generation innocently texting & trying, thinking LOL stood for, “Lots of Love”, not the “Laughing Out Loud” that has become today’s version of the abbreviation.

Texting & Trying is Drinking & Driving for old people: Generational Confusion. 

This proves there is comedy in tragedy, as well as hilarity in definitions and communication.

Sending LOL to someone regarding a death seems ridiculous, and yet, we need our sense of humor even when things are actually sad.

Most funerals I have attended are pretty somber, although people do their best to put forth a smile.  Sometimes it’s accidental!

When my wife’s grandma passed away in 2001 the family decided to hold the viewing in her living room.

I was a newlywed and wondered if this was some kind of ruse to mess with me…who holds a funeral in the deceased’s house when the chapel is down the street?

Yet as Uncle Doug pulled up in his station wagon, revealing his sweet mother’s casket in the back (luckily the seats folded down), and casually carried the coffin into the house along with his sons, I realized this was no joke and had never seen this kind of funeral or family!

I was asked to play the piano for this important event, and tasked to bring my keyboard, 88-keys weighing over 60 lbs, which I lumbered awkwardly into grandma’s old house.

Once inside, there were too many people in the living room and kitchen to fit my keyboard anywhere proper.

Looking around, I found the one place I could fit: The Hallway!

As I placed the keyboard in the hallway perpendicular to the bathroom door, with the keyboard in the hall, I sat on a stool (pun intended) in the bathroom where I emanated all the sweetest sounds (dad joke!), playing piano hymns from the potty (alliteration at it’s finest) as folks walked by asking to use the restroom.

In between tickling “How Great Thou Art” and “Amazing Grace” I would say, “There’s another restroom in grandma’s bedroom you’re free to use.  Please pass the time in there, and don’t forget to sign your name in the guestbook that you came to say your final goodbyes.”

This is an all true story my friends!  I wish I had a photo of it, but all of the cousins, uncles, and passersby were laughing so hard at the wackiness of my predicament no one realized it would go down in family lore that the “newlywed married-in struggling to make a living entertainer” was playing church songs from the commode.

The point is this: We have to laugh no matter the situation we find ourselves in, even when it stinks.  

I attended another funeral for the other side of the family a few years ago that I still laugh about because a song came on the radio today that reminded me of the experience.

I drove my in-laws 5 hours one way to attend this funeral, the passing of a great aunt, whose family decided to have the viewing not in her house, but in a reception center with no program planned.

Walking in, we said our goodbyes, hugged the relatives we didn’t know, and sat down to contemplate the moment.

That’s when I realized how quiet the whole situation was.  No one speaking.  No ambiance.  No music.

I noticed a piano in the corner and asked one of the relatives who didn’t know me if I could play the piano to add a touch of light to the funeral.  She said, “That’s fine, but don’t go too crazy.”

I sat down and began playing hymns from memory to honor the deceased.

After the 3rd reverent hymn, the daughter of the aunt came over and said, in a raspy joking tone, “Hey, do you want to liven it up a bit?  Mom’s favorite was “I’m All About That Bass”, as she laughed in a way that made me think she was messing around.

I laughed in return, and played yet another hymn, to continue the reverence of the event.

Eventually I made my way into a very slow and hymnal version of Elton John’s “Your Song”, “Tiny Dancer”, and “Candle In The Wind”, followed by some of Billy Joel’s greatest hits, “Honesty”, “Always A Woman To Me”, and “Piano Man”, keeping it “church and funeral friendly” (yes, it’s possible, perhaps someday I’ll have to make an album of these: Funeral Favorites From The Top 40), people didn’t even notice the difference between the spiritual hymns and the chart-topping hits.

I played happily for 2 hours until the whole event was over.

As we left the building, my father-in-law said, “That was extremely thoughtful of you to play those hymns, thank you.”

And then, out of nowhere, the daughter who had joked with me before came out of nowhere and said, “Yeah, I heard you sneak in Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man’ but I never heard you play the one song I requested: “All About That Bass!”

I realized she was right, and I had forgotten her request!

Apparently she literally wanted the whole room to dance and have a party, but I wasn’t aware she was serious, nor did I think she’d noticed the other hits I had slyly played!

It was an LOL Funeral moment for me.  I meant “Lots of Love” but she meant “Laugh Out Loud”.

Stories of this kind abound in my career and life, and they mostly come about because of one reason:

The Promise to Share & Serve with our significant & unique Signature Moves matters! 

I put myself out there to give, and often come away being kicked like a clown.  And yet, I would feel guilty and ashamed had I never played the keyboard from the bathroom or sat down to play at the great aunt’s funeral, even if to the chagrin of some for the songs I failed to play.

We cheat the world when we don’t keep The Promise by sharing that which we have been gifted!

The Promise to give that which only we can give, whether it be an LOL of laughter out loud or lots of love is of the essence in life, whether to celebrate each day, or the celebration of the passing of someone crossing the eternal rainbow into the next life.

How are you sharing your Promise today in your own LOL way?

Did you know that most people in this world react to change as it comes at them? I’m sure this does not necessarily come as a surprise to you, especially if that’s how you respond to changes to your status quo. Changes are uncomfortable already, so why adjust what you are doing when you don’t have to?

Because equally as indisputable as the aforementioned concept of reacting to change that gets thrown at you, whether you are a business leader, business owner, or an employee who does their job and clocks out at the end of the day, changes impact everyone no matter what. And now with quickly accelerating technology disrupting nearly everything about our lives, preserving the status quo of both your career and everyday life is difficult at best.

To answer the question from above, “Why should I change what I am doing if it is working?” it is because you will be disrupted sooner or later. Even if it doesn’t pertain to changes in your career, change in your personal life will shake up your leisure time as well.

While most people try to change alongside something that comes at them in seemingly unpredictable fashion, I want to help you see change before it occurs and discover the simple ways in which you can pre-solve the problems they may cause you before they ever happen.

The Concept of Changes from the Outside In

This is how change traditionally occurs for many of us each day. Something disrupts us, seemingly out of our control, and makes for an obstacle we have to quickly overcome to get “back to good,” so to speak.

A simple way to understand this is your shoe becoming untied while on a jog. You tie your shoes, start your phone timer, and take off running, only to notice your left lace becoming loose with every step. Before long, you have to stop, tying it while trying to regulate your breathing, and then taking off again.

In both professional and personal circumstances, I have found several different ways that change affects us from the outside in. Here is a deeper look into three specific ways this takes place:

New Laws Being Passed: Something we cannot fight, especially in the United States, is the passing of new laws that impact businesses, business processes, or our personal lives. For instance, when new driving laws get passed, you now have to comply with them or face a pricey ticket or more serious trouble.

Competition: Many think this type of outside-in change disrupts companies and small businesses only; however, this is a misguided assumption. Competition impacts everyone, especially if you are an employee. Your department hiring someone to help you with your daily tasks can often prompt you to change the way you work to keep them from replacing you instead.

Emergence of New Technology: In years past, this change was extremely slow, but now this is quickly becoming easily the most disruptive change coming from the outside in that we know of. Innovators introduce new technologies constantly, which is now shaking the status quo of business leaders and individuals in everyday life.

Agility with Outside-In Changes

Outside-in changes seem to happen fast, and many business books and lecturers out on speaking circuits push the concept of agility as being the way you as a business leader, entrepreneur, or even as an entry-level employee deal with these disruptions.

Don’t get me wrong; agility is definitely a must in many cases. However, it should be used in conjunction with anticipation. For instance, companies that have traditionally had their office workers report to a physical location were disrupted in extremely unique ways during the coronavirus pandemic, which demanded agility and anticipation be utilized together.

No one saw the pandemic coming in the powerful way it did, meaning everyone had to be agile. And though we really did not know when, we all knew the pandemic would come to a close, allowing us to take the time to anticipate how the working world would change in the future following COVID-19.

Be an Agent of Change from the Inside Out

Understanding the three ways that change from the outside in commonly takes place as mentioned earlier in this blog — new laws, competition, and new technology — already gives you an edge as a business leader, entrepreneur, or generally as an individual in contemporary society. But how exactly?

How you better adjust to change from the outside in is by becoming the force of change, or instead creating change from the inside out. A foundational element to my Anticipatory Leader System is in first knowing where to look for disruptions, such as those aforementioned three areas of outside-in change.

Knowing that new laws, competition, and new technology can and will disrupt you and your status quo allows you to begin your anticipatory journey by looking down the road in those categories and deciphering how each could disrupt your business or life. Once you see how one or even all three will disrupt your business and industry, you pre-solve these problems by planning for the new technology, staying ahead of the competition, and implementing the new technology.

Returning briefly to our example of companies using agility in the wake of the pandemic, anticipatory ones looked to the new laws surrounding the pandemic and how they’d adapt with remote work as needed, considered how their competition may stay profitable in the event supply chain issues continued, and leveraged technological advancements exponentially to improve their new workflow indefinitely.

Change from the outside in is a Hard Trend future certainty in that it will always take place, and a lead-from-behind mentality only puts a bandage on your scraped knees after you fall. That bandage will not cushion the next fall that outside-in change causes you, but creating change from the inside out gives you real, adequate padding to prevent future damages.