chip's thoughts on fatherhood

A parent is someone who every child models themselves off of. Either they want to be the same or the opposite. In most cases it is a combination or more likely a rejection as a teenager with acceptance at 30 and then idolization after children. This is what my father was to me. A nutball and a hero.

Fatherhood is about mentoring and being a model for children to grow into. It is about patience and listening and not getting wrapped up in the emotion that naturally occurs.

My relationship to my dad is excellent. We both change as we age so we both know life is short and our relationship with each other is the most important there is. I love the relationship and learning that my children get from a more mature, mellow grandfather. Their relationship inspires me to be a granddad (some day).

We did not invent the manifesto together but many of the sayings originated with my dad. Most notably anything to do with living in the moment. He always said the meaning of life is in the moment and nothing else.

meet dennis

We refocused on developing our staff in goal setting and personal responsibility. We knew our training made people great and to make a difference, we decided to expand so we could train more great people. In doing so we reinvented who lululemon was going to be to the world.

People have expressed interest in our training and our vision of elevating the world from mediocrity to greatness. We train our educators to be great but what exactly does "mediocrity to greatness" mean?

Mediocrity can be defined by in many ways. To paint you a picture, mediocrity is doing an "okay job", having a relationship that "works", being just "a little" overweight, or having a job that "pays the bills". Mediocrity is putting up with things the way they are with no firm plan to change the situation by a specific date. Mediocrity is following a predetermined and unfulfilling path. Most people live in a state of mediocrity. Mediocrity is as close to the bottom as it is the top.

Greatness is demanding the best of everything and doing what is required to get it. Greatness is demanding friends who demand the best, demanding the best wife or husband and the best job with the best pay. Greatness is demanding the company you work for to make the best products and be uncompromising in its promise to its customers. Greatness is demanding the best out of one's self.

Greatness means taking ownership of your life and operating out of what is possible, not from a place of fear. Greatness is having faith that the world will unfold as you design it to be.

To test if our training was successful, I had my assistant define what "mediocrity to greatness" was for her and this is what she wrote:

In order to determine what greatness means, you first need to figure out what mediocrity is. Mediocrity is a state in which most individuals live. Most people are completely unaware of the greatness that exists within them and they continually co-exist in a vicious cycle of trying to make themselves happy in unfulfilling and meaningless ways. Most people are not happy living this way but most do not even know what it means to live a "great" life. They have never been exposed to the possibility of living life in this manner. They are completely unaware of the fact that their mediocrity is killing their ability to be great. It is in this small detail where those of us who have been exposed to the possibility of a great life are able to contribute to elevating the world from a place of mediocrity to a place of greatness.

MEDIOCRITY

• Living a "FINE" life
• Just going with the motions of life – not "living" life
• Status Quo
• Following a predetermined path
• Following a "leader"
• Stagnant
• A vocabulary full of "I wish", "I hope", excuses and blame
• Worrying about what others think
• Not taking control of ones life
• Continually trying to look good
• Not loving every moment life
• Unhealthy Mind = Unhealthy Body

GREATNESS

• Leading a "great" life on a daily basis
• Creating your own path in this world
• Being a "leader"
• Unique individual
• Do not live your life concerned about how you look or what others think
• Live a life full of endless possibilities
• Open to failing and making mistakes
• Learning and new experiences
• Knowledge
• Continually moving forward
• Confident, strong and courageous
• Personal Responsibility – full ownership of one's life
• Making a difference – being a contribution

The law of attraction says you will attract into your life the goals and visions that you manifest as possible and real. Great visions and goals will attract others with great visions and goals. Great people help great people become greater.

Choose to be GREAT...Choose to bring greatness into your life and choose to partake in "elevating the world from a place of mediocrity to a place of greatness!"

Alcoholics attract alcoholics
Athletes attract athletes
Thieves attract thieves
People with integrity attract people with integrity
Liars attract liars
People who know how to make money attract people who know how to make money
Empathetic people attract empathetic people
Goal setters attract goal setters
People who take on sole responsibility for how their lives turn out attract the same
Complainers attract complainers
Health attracts health
Sickness attracts sickness

The list is endless.  How do you know what type of person you are?  Look at the people you attract in your life.  Look hard at your “friends” and at your family.  Are they always complaining about how their lives and work and relationships?  Do they have concrete goals with dates for completion?  Are they people of action?

You have to look at the quality of your friends because no one is capable of seeing themselves for who they are.  The inability to see ourselves is one of nature’s tricks to make us think we are powerless while at the same time having us believe we are the best we can be.

I will venture to say that most people do not reach their potential because they do not love themselves.  Because they do not love themselves they are stuck in a prison of trying to “look good”.  They pretend to be who they are not and buy material items to show they are different from what they are.

The inherent problem with being a human being is that we are an integral part of nature.   Nature’s game is reproduction and survival.  As long as an entity lives long enough to reproduce, then nature has succeeded.  Nature does not care if humans live a great life.

We have the greatest chance meeting someone in mediocrity because most humans are busy pretending to be anyone other than who they are.  Two fake images meeting each other usually end up unhappy and divorced.

To understand what others think of you, you must be open to “feedback”.  Specifically go to five people (including your boss) you admire and ask them the following questions:

• what can you always count on me for?
• what can you never count on me for?
• if I was to improve one thing about myself, what would that be?
• 12 people have been shipwrecked on a deserted island.  There is one boat that will hold 6 people and if the 6 people work perfectly as team they have a 10% chance of survival.  The people left behind will perish.  Would you take me and if yes why and if not why not?

A person who has not asked for feedback is probably living a mediocre life.  Mediocre people are very powerful but they are an excel spreadsheet with no instructions.  With feedback you can start to develop your “manual for life” and move out of mediocrity towards greatness.

The LAW OF ATTRACTION is the fundamental law that lululemon was built on from its 1998 inception.  All our training and culture is predicated on developing great people so we can attract great people.  This is not marketing lip service.  Just ask the people who work with us.   Our vision is “to elevate the world from mediocrity to greatness” and we are growing so we can train more people and spread the word of the “The Secret” – which to us at lululemon is not so secret.

Women's lives changed immediately. Men's lives didn't change however and they continued to search for a stay-at-home wife like their mothers. Men did not know how to relate to the new female. Thus came the era of divorces.

With divorce and publicity around equality, women in the 1970's/80's found themselves operating as "Power Women". The media convinced women that they could win at home and be a man's equal in the business world. Women put in 12 hour work days, attempted to keep a clean and orderly house, and give their children all the love they had pre-divorce. What they gave up however was their social life, exercise, balance, and sleep.

The 1980's gave way to Power Women dressing like men in boardroom attire with big shoulder pads. They went to 3 martini lunches and smoked because this is what their "successful" fathers did in the business world.

Girls raised by Power Women knew that education was essential because "when they got divorced" they too would need enough income to manage a house and a job at the same time. I term the daughters of Power Women "Super Girls".

Super Girls spent weekends with a divorced father who had no training on how to be with a daughter for two straight days. Fathers did what they knew best: they got their daughters into sports and became their coaches and mentors.

Super Girls were influenced by Saturday morning cartoons which traditionally featured four men wearing capes and lycra suits, running around saving the world.  Cartoons started to show a female in the group, also wearing tight, stylish lycra and a cape.  This sexy, powerful and equal woman became an icon to Super Girls who were doing what most teenagers do – dressing opposite to their mothers.  They did not have the same need to look like boys or men to compete with them.  In the early 1990’s, girls abandoned the grunge/skateboard/snowboard/male dominated sport look and moved towards tighter tops and more feminine colors.

The surf companies were among the first to establish a feminine look in girl’s athletic clothing.  But in functional athletic clothing, only “dumbed down” versions of men’s styles were available for women.

Almost overnight, women went from 20% to 56% of the university population.  By the 1990’s, Super Girls were finishing university where they excelled at school and sports.  They then entered the work force en masse and tried to figure out how to compete in a 12-hour-a-day competitive job market and have a functioning family.  Rarely did the two reconcile which created, and is still creating, an inordinate amount of stress on women today.  Fortunately, there is a direct correlation between education and health.  Super Girls knew that the best way to combat stress and sickness was to create natural endorphins found in athletics.

Breast cancer also came into prominence in the 1990’s.  I suggest this was due to the number of cigarette-smoking Power Women who were on the pill (initial concentrations of hormones in the pill were very high) and taking on the stress previously left to men in the working world.

In 1997 or so, yoga emerged as an activity that was both accessible and non-competitive for its participants.  It showed up at a time when women recognized the benefits of decompressing and living in the moment.  Yoga provided the same great feeling as snowboarding or surfing but could be done in an hour and a half and close to home.

Ultimately, lululemon was formed because female education levels, breast cancer, yoga/athletics and the desire to dress feminine came together all at one time.  lululemon saw the opportunity to make the best technologically advanced components for the Super Girl market.