Shaun Groves
I’m not Becky. I don’t look as good in jeans and I’m not an organizational savant. I don’t enjoy buying or using binders, dividers, paper clips, pencils or pens. I do not write things down on calendars nor do I confer with one before saying, “Absolutely, I can do that for you.” I do not use words like “sum,” “net” or “gross.” I prefer words like “money I get to keep” and “how much I have before the Man takes his.” I do not always recall what twelve minus seven is. My answer is sometimes “more than four and less than ten.” I do not make to do lists. I do not do things on to do lists. I have never written “make to do list” on a to do list. Becky has. I am not Becky.
I’m not Brian either. I do not remember the name of every or any person I meet. Brian and Becky are two of five individuals whose names I can recall, most of the time, when seeing their face. I do not set goals that have anything at all ever to do with numbers. I do not keep track of how many miles I have driven in a weekend, or how many CDs I have sold in North Carolina, or how many people are sitting in the seats. I do not enjoy returning phone calls or typing e-mails. I do not compete today with my productivity yesterday: the number of contacts entered into a database, the number of return calls received, the number of times the phone rang, how fast I ran ten miles, how many Mountain Dews I consumed before blacking out, etc. My friend Brian does. I am not Brian.
Essentially, the epiphany here is this: I am not a worker.
I am an entrepreneur, which is French for a guy who has ideas but doesn’t actually ever do them. Doing them is what I hired Brian and married Becky for.
What I’ve had to accept about myself lately is that I’m not only not good but actually terribly bad at work as it’s come to be defined by, you know, people who work. First of all, I enjoy building things with my hands or my head – painting, writing, singing, gardening, fixing. These are things I’m truly good at and enjoy. I like to make things and so much of work is not about making. It’s about maintaining. Secondly, I love to solve problems, to match needs with resources. I actually enjoy thinking about what’s wrong, researching and learning, so that we can get one step closer to bringing the proper resources and people in to make it right. And I like doing this in a group, in a conversation and debate type atmosphere.
Give me a list of tasks and deadlines and send me off to an office to do a job a hundred other people are doing and I’ll be fetal, rocking in the nearest corner, by noon. Not Becky and Brian. They thrive. But give me a problem and a team and dare us to dream up a solution without limitations and I come alive.
I’ve tried to be what I’m not off and on for years. No more. I’ll never be the worker bee thrilled to cross out items on a list. I’m the guy with opinions, lots of them spewing out of his head – and a couple of them are actually worth hearing. At least that’s my opinion. So I’m sharing one or two here in hopes that speaking them out loud will force me to act on them, to move forward and not be content to think them up and let them die.
Eventually the dreaming phase will end and I’ll pass the ideas on to the Becky and Brian types in the world. They’ll create the necessary to do lists and go to work, turning what was only imaginary into flesh and bone. I hope.
Grovesfan says:
Just because you prefer to work with your head and your hands doesn’t mean you don’t work. You just do it differently and the world would be WAY boring without you and others like you in it. My son and my middle daughter are just like that. My other two are the list makers and organizers. All smart and workers, just in different ways. I’m “Becky” and my husband is the maker and doer. Just check out the vast assortment of tools and piles of wood in our garage.
Beth
Scrapnqueen says:
Hey, Shaun!
I just found your blog through someone else’s, and am so thrilled! I loved your first album–just about wore it out. We are seriously lacking any Christian radio where I live, so I sadly have no idea of your recent work–except what I just read about in your two most recent posts. Anyway, from an aspiring songwriter who will likely never move to Nashville and get her stuff heard by anyone, it’s good to hear the “success stories” about people who are getting to share the music God gave them–and who keep it real. Thanks for the honesty in your music.
And re: this post: I am a weird combination of a doer and a dreamer. I love lists, but if I get excited about an idea, I’m off on it for about a week, and the rest of my life kind of goes by the wayside. However, the realities of being responsible for three little boys, cleaning a house, and doing a mountain of laundry every week always bring me back to the list. Maybe I wouldn’t be so organized if it weren’t for all that. Hmmm…
God bless!
Talena
Shaun Groves says:
Thanks for commenting, Talena. Even if you had Christian radio in your area you’d still have no idea of my recent “work.” They don’t play my recent work pretty much at all – unless you live in Tulsa. ; )
And yes, having adult responsibilities like kids and a house and a mortgage have definitely forced me to make lists. Very small simple ones though like:
1)Record music
2)Walk to mailbox
3)Open envelope containing check
4)Deposit check
5)Pay bills
6)Change the little person’s diaper
7)Make macaroni and cheese
8)Repeat 1-5 every twelve months
9)Repeat 7 daily
10)Repeat 6 hourly
Shawn Bashor says:
Dude I am totally with you on this. I am great at thinking of how to do something in the best way, but I am even better at telling someone how to do it. In my job (retinal angiography, meaning really fancy photography involving injecting dye) I get done what I need to do, but I seem to get 6 other people to get down what they need to do, and what I don’t feel like doing. Kind of funny how it works, deligation is a beautiful thing.
Cali Amy says:
I make to-do lists and then lose them.
Scrapnqueen says:
Haha! I like your list! See, you can make them when you have to!
AL says:
Yeah, tape copy stunk for guys like you.
That was a whole to-do wall.
I make lists and then if I do something that wasn’t on the list I find a way to add it to the list so I can get it checked off. This week the only two checkmarks I didn’t get were “ironing” and “clean cats’ ears.” We only had napkins from Christmas Dinner to iron, and the cats hid well when the ear cleanser came out.
Strangely, skipping two whole checkmarks was a little daring and liberating. Maybe next week I’ll dust the house back to front instead of front to back.
I’m glad there is you to be you. Give me no parameters and a wide open sky and I can freeze like a bunny. But create/invent something out of the box and I excel at making the new box for it so that it continues to function. And I’m eternally glad that Shauns have Beckys and that Joes have Brians.