The Dance of the Systems Mindset
One day during Christmas week I was in the office stirring up the dust and generally making a nuisance of myself. While trading good-natured barbs with Andi as she sat at her desk, behind her I saw a guy at the top of a ladder washing the outside of her office window. As a semi-humble student of life-events, I went silent and watched the man do his work. He finished that window and then started the other one right next to it.
Andi got up and stood there next to me, watching. She knew exactly what this was about. It was a thing of beauty. The man was an artist.
I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket, set it on video, and began shooting as the contractor quickly completed three more windows. Then I went downstairs and interviewed him.
Watch this video sequence with a systems mindset critical eye. Especially note:
- The contractor’s deliberate focused attention; his “I’m here to work!” comportment
- The fluid, no-waste strokes, all thought-out yet ingrained and natural; all movements precise and exactly the same on each window.
- How fast he completes the work
- The excellent result he produces, each time.
Does watching this video strike you in an almost emotive way? If so, you “get it,” or you’re very close.
The artist? Mike Ochoa with Everclear Cleaning Services of Bend, Oregon.
Let’s switch gears. That was back in late December. As I write this I’m solo in Costa Rica, four hours drive east of San Jose on the remote Caribbean coast, just north of Panama. My trip’s main purpose is to shoot a short documentary on John Summers and his family. John’s a surfer who moved here from the states 12 years ago. He met Sharon, a gorgeous Costa Rican; they married and have two beautiful daughters.
John says he turned around his started-from-scratch business, ProPatio landscaping, via Work the System.
It’s been good, being here. Yesterday’s sequence of events: up at 5am; walk the beach at sunrise (yes, it’s warm! I walk in just swim trunks); breakfast back at the B&B at 7; work on the Academy project for a couple of hours (literally, in a hammock and surrounded by palm trees). Then, a long aerobic hike up into the hills and back; at 2pm, a webinar with Robert Schrobe and Bill Glaser; 3pm, catch-up on emails. Dinner: at 4, off to John and Sharon’s for a fish BBQ and to get some more video footage for the Mini-documentary. The Summers live up in the jungle in a sprawling, rustic house on acreage. Fantastic! Back to the B&B at 10, lights out at 11!
On other days, without going out for dinner, I spend the evening hours working on the last bits of my part of the project, writing and answering emails, going back and forth on Skype with Mike in the UK, Linda in Seattle, Josh, Andi, Hollee, Dan in the Bend office, and with Kyle, our house-sitter…and a variety of other old and new friends world-wide (this week: Dubai, Pakistan, Australia, Iran, Canada, and elsewhere).
I’ve been working some long hours down here but that’s how I want it. The work is awesomely satisfying and the people who work with me are a delight.
And, in the course of a day, I can walk the beach and hike in the hills just so much. And I could party-down with my time, but I don’t.
Things happen across time, and each day down here follows a similar pattern. I wallow in the flow of it. And, comforting, Linda and I Skype back and forth often. She says she’s enjoying her long solo days up there in snowy Seattle, doing the final graphics for the Academy, but also, she says she misses me.
And Mike’s over there in rainy, cold London. We’ve talked about it: Perhaps all three of us will come down here in March after Mike spends February in Bend, working with us to get the Academy machine to stand on its own.
This is the third tropical get-away I’ve had in the last three months: Late October, Baja, Mexico with guy-friends; second week in December, Maui with Linda, and now here, solo.
Yeah man! I’m working the system; profoundly thankful for this life I’ve been granted.
Ashleigh Brillant says it best: The Club called earth has very special facilities – and I’
(Ashleigh Brilliant quote used with permission)
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