True North- Chapter 9: The End (9 months of "life" on 1 page)

I am a believer that everyone on this planet has 3 critical elements to their “being” and these elements are; mental, physical and spiritual.  It is also my belief that it is quite rare to find the person who has achieved a harmony or balance with each of these critical life elements.  In early 2011 I set out to learn a bit about the mental component of my life, an internal psychology experiment of sorts, which drove me to explore thoughts, actions, behaviours, fears, challenges and frustrations, so at the end of 9 months of writing, I was able to condense each month into a theme and then streamline those themes into articles that precede this post.  Eight valuable life lessons that I hope to pass to my children and lessons that I hope you enjoyed reading over the last two months too. I discovered something through this exercise that I now refer to as my “true north”, which is the internal compass that guides me through life.  Although it isn’t a compass in the traditional sense of the word, it is a compass based around feelings and intuition and something that you have to look inward to find.  Each of us will have our own bearings and our own direction in life, so I learned that “true north”, for me, motivates my soul and keeps me pushing through the challenges in life, helps to navigate my relationships and enables me to create impact on those around me (sometimes for the good and if I’m not careful, for the bad too).

I am closing my first “blog” book with a summary of last year's monthly themes and I’ve recently started journaling on a new topic, so I can begin sharing my experiences with the second “critical element” of my life, the physical.  I’m turning 40 in November and I want to work on finding ways to become sustainably healthy and to better manage the physical elements of my life, so I can prep myself for another 40 or 50 years on this planet (God willing).

To my kids…I hope you enjoy reading these lessons and I hope that I’m able to put these same lessons in motion more frequently in my own life too.

Chapter 1- Where it all comes from: For years I have been hyper-emotional and have been willing and able to show and share thoughts and introspection more comfortably than most people.  It hit me in April of 2011 that hiding from this willingness to share feelings shouldn’t be accepted, so I decided to become even more open about my life experiences and I began using this “gift” to help other people become more comfortable with sharing (authentically) what they learn and experience while travelling through life.

Chapter 2- There’s a creature in the basement: Don’t enable fear to paralyze you from accomplishing something you have set out to accomplish in life.  Expect situations, through life, that will create a fearful response and learn enough about yourself to be able to anticipate when those situations will “pop up” and be willing to continue pushing through life regardless of what comes at you.  If you let fear paralyze you, you’ll struggle more than necessary.

Chapter 3- Everyone’s a genius: Our society puts labels on everyone and everything.  We all learn at a different pace and in very different styles.  Some of us are masters at the mechanical and others in the theoretical, so learn to appreciate the genius inside of you and don’t let others define what that genius is.  You define it (by listening to your internal voice and acting on those things that inspire and motivate you every day). And if I jump down your throat about choices you make in the future, please remind me to read my own writing.

Chapter 4- Stand up and applaud: As we age (and gain more adult responsibility) I noticed I tend to forget to appreciate the little, miraculous, occurrences that happen all around us.  We should “stand up” and applaud more often instead of looking down life’s road with frustration about what we might not have.  Yes.  I’m telling you to appreciate a sun set, the sound of rain, snowfall, the roof over your head, the food in your home.  Those are things worth applauding.  Don’t let the rest of the world convince you that money, titles, cars, status and “things” are worth praise.

Chapter 5- Don’t wait for the “right” time to do something:  Don’t procrastinate.  If you want to accomplish something, plan for it and go after it.  It doesn’t help to expect time or other people to take care of our lives, we need to live our lives, appreciate our lives and respect that we have a finite amount of time on this planet.  If you don’t like a job (move on), if you want to visit another country (book the travel), if you see someone in need (help them) and…if your family is close to you (spend time with them).  Live your life with purpose.

Chapter 6- This stuff can kill you:  Please don’t let the act of impressing other people, seeking the attention of other people or looking for approval from anyone else create stress in your life.  This has been one of the most challenging aspects of my short life and I’m growing more certain that the stress created by hoping, chasing and seeking other people’s approval will lead to an early death (of sorts).  Instead, be free to acknowledge learning curves, grow comfortable saying “I don’t know” and be willing to find and learn the answers to questions you might not know.

Chapter 7- A one way street:  When it comes to interacting with other people.  Love and respect people unconditionally.  If you are willing to spend more time concerned about loving people versus correcting or fixing people, you’ll generate some really positive energy for all of those you come in contact with.  Loving and caring should be something that we, as people, do without the expectation of receiving in return.  If all of us do this, it would be a pretty comfortable world to live in (and I bet we’d end up receiving more in return that we thought we might).

Chapter 8 – Patience and Persistence:  Probably the simplest lesson I learned over the last year.  People, who exhibit patience and persistence, tend to be well balanced, comfortable and accomplished in life.  Trust me and anyone else who tells you…life will throw enough at you that it can’t hurt to be willing to show patience through life and anytime you want to accomplish something, persistence comes in real handy too.

The End…

True North-Chapter 8: Persistence & Patience saved my...

Let's pretend, for just a minute, that we are able to flash forward to January 2030.  I'll be 57, my wife 56 and my kids will be...27, 25 & 22. It's hard to believe that I'll ever get to that time in life, but it's also hard for me to digest that I bought my first mini-van 8 years ago (don't kid yourself, I still look "solid" driving the mighty Town & Country), so I'm accepting that life will continue to motor on at a feverish pace (just like our parents and grandparents said it would).

I was married at 25, so it's also not much of a stretch to think that my children could be prepping for their marriages in or around the 2030 time frame (Jillian- please wait until you're at least 30 to get married…thank you for your consideration with this matter) and in the spirit of thinking ahead 18 years, I would like to share a lesson about marriage with my kids, which surfaced during my most recent re-read of the 2011 journal.

I hate to consider what the divorce rate is going to be in 2030, knowing that, in 2012, more than 1/2 of all marriages end in divorce.  As I read some passages from 2011, I noticed a regular theme about how my life, my introspection, my career and my decisions impact my wife, Deena.  For those who don't know us as a couple, my wife and I are very different people.  I am impulsive, she drags feet on decisions, she is meticulous, and I tend to rush through things.  I'm 20 minutes early to most events; she is not early to any event...

In short; we are very different people (opposites in a number of areas) except for one; our persistence as a couple and our common belief in the life goals each of us has set for the future.  In addition to those important pieces are the shared passions for relationships with people and the willingness to fight to keep each other on track as it relates to our life goals.

If I had to tell my children what to look for in a spouse...a matching level of persistence toward achieving goals coupled with a shared patience for the time you'll spend while getting to those life goals are two traits that can help when you decide to spend your life with someone.  Additionally, finding someone who can compliment you, which I have done, has been instrumental in keeping me sane (and...I won't lie; being patient comes in handy again when the act of "complimenting" one another, which is really a code word for the act of passionately disagreeing with your spouse, presents itself).  Continuing down the path of sharing too much information for my wife's comfort (why stop now, she's already going to be frustrated that she is the focal point of this article)... I also forgot to mention that I like to share feelings and emotions with the entire world and she doesn't quite feel the same way.  As our marriage unfolded, we had NO clue as to the situations we were going to find ourselves in later in life.  After 16 years together, Deena and I have lived, first hand, almost everything a couple could see (financial strain, birth defects and repair surgeries for one of our children, tough career choices, poor parenting decisions, taking each other for granted and all of the other good, bad and indifferent choices that can strain a marriage).

Why do I include this information in my "life lessons" project?  I'm sharing this information because I received some news from a group who Deena and I have been working with since the crescendo of our "2008 financial challenges" and the information I received made my soul smile for the first time in 4 years.  In lieu of going "belly up & bankrupt" in 2008, I've already written about the decision Deena and I made to repay a significant sum of money, which was debt tied to a futile attempt at becoming SE Michigan's next real estate baron.  The repay decision, which was scheduled to be paid, monthly, for 5 years…put more than a little strain on our personal financial situation (and our lives together).  Deena was patient as I moved careers to protect the income we needed to meet our agreed upon obligations, we supported each other as our life style had to drastically adjust and the two of us were forced to learn, quickly, what it was like to really become "adults".  You've read about my education through this process (forced humility and an increased appreciation for what life has to offer sans the material things in life) and, finally, what I haven't written enough about is the level of appreciation I should express to my wife for the way she handled this experience with me.  She was the definition of patient and persistent as we worked to manage the life changes and the stress that inherently came along.  No drama intended with this next statement, but she could have left...I could have left...instead; we chose to stick around and keep fighting.  Back to the information I received…I was notified that in 45 days we will have repaid the last of our obligations and we'll have cleared one of the largest obstacles encountered in our married lives.  I'm sure we'll have other obstacles to deal with in the future, but this 4 year experience (we repaid ahead of the program by a year) has taught me the importance of patience and persistence and it gave me a whole new appreciation for "balanced" decisions.  To my children...I hope you can learn from my mistakes and won't have to learn them on your own, but in case you opt for the option your Dad typically takes (touching the stove himself to learn that it really is hot), when you are faced with adversity...please remember to be patient, to be persistent toward your end goal and to stick around and fight for those goals you've set for yourself.

The end result is a satisfaction that words can't describe.

True North-Chapter 7: Maybe it should be a one-way street

If you know me, you’ll appreciate that ideas are typically not in “short supply” because I love to think and think and think.  Eventually, something I think about or talk about will make enough sense to put down on paper. In December, I thought about pulling all of my major themes/discoveries from the last year into a 10 chapter collection (9 life lessons and a summary chapter) that focused on the experiences I had in 2011.  As I finished the 6^th chapter I felt comfortable with where I was headed and I began the process of visualizing what these chapters were going to look like in book form.  See, I’m going to self-publish these life lessons into a coffee table book with some pictures of the family and I’ll be sharing the book with the kids, hoping they enjoy learning from their Dad’s life exposure. 

I guess the biggest challenge has been trying to keep my articles “fresh” while the underlying tones and themes of my journal have been a bunch of repetitive topics.  As I read from April-September/October (again), I became more and more frustrated by the writing process and I couldn’t get a grip on something that really felt like a good experience to share.  This is where I typically start to force my writing and the reason I can start typing at7amand have to continue the re-write process at10pm.  I continued to peruse my journal from the last year, in search of an elusive “nugget o’ wisdom” and as I laid the journal down, my pen happened to land in the fold of the journal and ironically highlighted a passage that I had forgotten about.  Bingo, we have a topic, so…off to another week of pontificating with LT Furlow.

Generosity (and the aspiration to have more of it in life) is a theme which is peppered throughout my journal.  I wrote, last week, about how important it can be for people to learn to appreciate life through self awareness and the art of being focused on decisions from one’s core; not motivated or inspired by other’s opinions or judgement, so this week I’d like to take that one step farther and a bit deeper too.

Here is what my pen landed on: I hope my children will learn to love unilaterally.  Now, this will probably spark some comments about the negativity associated with loving out and never learning how to accept love, but that’s not what I mean and it is not my point or intention for my kids either.  The concept is deeper than that.  I’m not going to try and raise martyrs, I promise.  The definition of loving unilaterally, in my opinion is a “one-way” street of sorts, right?  Bear with me here.  I want my kids to learn that loving, showing generosity, caring and showing concern for people generates power and energy, especially when they don’t “expect” anything back in return (it’s the not expecting anything in return that defines my one-way street) and I think is the most self-less form of love.  If they can learn to love, respect, appreciate and show compassion (regardless of the situation they may be facing in life), I think they’ll be OK.  Too many times (and especially in the last year) I have noticed journal entries that led me to the conclusion that I’ve experienced frustration with certain people in my life because I had the “expectation” that I did something nice for you, so YOU now do something nice for me. I realized that I wasn’t or hadn’t shown love or appreciation to certain people, places or experiences for the purpose of making others feel loved.  Quite the contrary, I was showing love and offering of myself in order to get something in return and that’s not fair to do to people.    

From my journal in September:

“I haven’t been good at the whole “loving unilaterally” thing…and this might be where some of my frustration with life comes from.  I’m going to try to focus on loving unilaterally, without the hidden “strings” of expectation.”

I’m not going to claim that I have some how mastered the ability to love or do kind things without anything back in return, but since my discovery in September and my rehashing of the point today, I’m going to work harder at achieving the ability to do this.  The lesson for my kids and for any of my readers is the hope that we explore what it’s like to really offer of ourselves, to truly love the people around us and to fully love and engage with our careers, acts of generosity in our communities without expecting anything back in return.  In order to do this, we’ll need to be comfortable with whom we are as people and it will help to know our personal “True North”.  Once done, I think the experiences we will generate in life will be outstanding and would be rooted in an incredibly positive space.

Wrap your arms around what it would be like if everyone you knew was hyper concerned about pushing out love, care, generosity and concern for others.  It would be a pretty cool place (tee up John Lennon’s Imagine as background music right now and I’m sure you’d have a dramatic moment). 

As utopian as it might sound…I guess it’s worth the try.  I’ve been “the nice guy” all of my life, so why not work harder at spreading some of that around.

True North: Chapter 6- Be Careful...this stuff could kill you!

I started my new internal transfer (HR Manager) this week and had two major projects to facilitate by Friday, January 6^th at5pm.  These projects created a couple of7am-9pm days (not what you’d like to deal with coming off of a long holiday break) and yes, they added a little extra stress to my life, but in the end…it all worked out. Ironically, I LOVED the pace and the little injection of stress that these projects created.  I’ve always had a bit of an addictive personality, so whether it’s food intake, exercise frequency, alcohol consumption, and hours at work or involvement with the kids, I tend to live by the mantra of ALL or NOTHING.  This “mantra” hasn’t been all that easy to manage through life, but it has made me interesting to party with, work with, train with and to break bread with.  I know that choosing more balanced behaviours and working to live a more moderate blue print would make more sense, so I continue to work toward ways that will create my “how to” list with respect to the various aspects of life mentioned above.  My personal struggles with imbalance led me to acknowledge that “balance” in all of the above mentioned areas of life will be critical for physical and mental well being, but I’ve also learned that balance is harder to grab a hold of in our times.  As I continue exploring a more balanced set of life choices, I enjoyed reflecting on how and why stress appeared to fuel me this passed week.  As I already mentioned, what I found oddly comforting is that I think I’ve been craving a jolt of stress and I want to know why and most importantly, I’d like to break my craving for that thing we call stress.  Yes, the pressure of the projects made me push a bit harder and I felt more engaged, but something didn’t feel right.

The eerie feeling I’m looking to curb has its genesis in a pretty disappointing place.  If I was putting in the extra hours to benefit other people or to make the lives I come in contact with better, then I’d feel more comfortable with why the stress was in my life, but I didn’t deliver these projects for those reasons.   I delivered these projects, as I do with most projects, so other people would think highly of me, plain and simple.  Why this bothers me is due to the frequency that I experience these feelings and the long list of other people who I witness, on a daily basis, living through the same damn challenges (only most of them won’t admit it, yet).  Most of the people I know who put in the long hours, earn the big money, deliver the top produce aren’t doing it for their own pleasure; they seem to be doing it to please or earn the support of a parent, a boss, a friend or a co-worker.  This is why I titled the 6^th chapter of this project; “This will kill...”  First, putting the word kill in any title will generate a few more hits, but in all seriousness, the way stress can hurt is real (we’ve all heard about people who fall over dead from a heart attack at 45 because of long hours, poor diet, limited exercise of the mind or body).  Long runs of stress (especially stress induced for the approval of others) might not physically kill you, but it sure as hell will help kill a person’s spirit.  Stress rooted in the appreciation or approval of other people is beginning to show its head earlier and earlier in life too.  I have some good friends who have daughters that are sweet and adorable kids.  Both are bright, creative, polite and genuinely kind, so I found it sadly hilarious that their mom, Jean, threw a comment out on Facebook this weekend about their 7 year-old, Lily, saying over dinner…”Mom, you know, people just need a little more balance in life!”  When I read the quote, I had to call them and talk to this 7 year old “philosopher in training” to get her perspective on balance and when I connected with them, I was able to hear from Lily and her nine year old sister, Emily, about their perspectives on life balance.  We talked about school, friends, practicing recorders at recess, and a number of other perspectives that only 7 and 9 year old kids could come up with.  In short, the fact that these two “little ones” even understand the concept supports that our society is continuing to move way too fast (and won’t be sustainable) and I think that both of these kids are probably experiencing some early stress in the hopes of earning the approval of people in their lives too.

In theory (and in the perfect world), there shouldn’t be any stress in life.  Please hear me out as I jump on the “philosophical soap box”.  If we wake every morning and are with the people we love, go to a place that helps make the world stronger (call that the career) and we spend some time ensuring that the people in our lives are learning and growing with us and around us, then I would imagine stress would be relatively minimal.  If I told people every day how much they meant to me and how much I loved and cared for them, then when they “died” from this world, I don’t think I would have the same level of stress and sadness that I might experience if I lost someone who I kept a distance from.  If I lived, every day, with the thought of exercising my body, feeding my body and soul with healthy inputs and resting when I needed rest, then I would achieve the physical balance needed to eliminate those dreaded stress headaches, stomach pains and anxiety that so many of us have each day in this country.

And most importantly…If I didn’t focus on what other people were thinking and saying and could change my thoughts to be focused on living and learning from the experiences I’m given, then life should become more experiential and less mundane and repetitive (as I hear it described by so many).  You know the spiel, “What’s up? Uh, you know, the same old &^%$, just a different day.  I have this exchange with two or three people per day, so there must be some validity in what I’m writing.

It sounds so easy and utopian to adjust life and wouldn’t it be an amazing flip of ideology to begin living for experiences, for learning, for the ability to share with others and to lead a more simple life?  Try it.  Whether you are 7, 9, 39 or 92…try living for you and try making decisions for you that will benefit others, not decisions coaxed by others that just make you stressed and frustrated.  When you truly make decisions for you, your energy will be that much more positive and you’ll be able to naturally help others around you.  You have all read my articles and know that I’m open to admitting that I have lived too long seeking the approval of others, but I’m also admitting that I have inadvertently conditioned my kids to start living for my approval, Emily and Lily are probably doing the same with their friends and family and hell, my 92 year old Grandmother even alluded to living her life for the approval of others (at breakfast yesterday) and those people she alluded to have all been gone for decades.

I know I’m not bringing up the next great psychological epiphany here, but something I have immense passion around is sharing these feelings (because others are struggling with this too), so be brave and admit if you live this way and work to change it.  It may sound inherently selfish to live for you, but I challenge you to begin experiencing and believing how truly connected you can become to the positive spirit and energy that all of us have when you turn those projects at work, the recorder practice at recess or the better diet we all want to eat to be about us, so we can help others.  When we start doing more of this, I think we’ll feel less and less of that stress that plagues so many.

True North-Chapter 5: Life needs GPS

What does true north mean to you? True north is a term used by mariners, hikers & outdoorsmen alike.  It is typically referenced when discussing the difference between magnetic north (the earth’s natural magnetic pull and its effect on a compass) and true north, which is the place you might be navigating toward (which typically varies a few degrees away from magnetic north) depending on where you are standing on our planet.  Yes, a compass will guide you to magnetic north, but finding true north creates the need for a little extra work.  That’s why I call these first 5 chapters (and the 5 that follow), my True North project.  It’s my recap of the efforts to find the true direction I believe I am to head in life and my ability to deal with the challenges that will inevitably be presented.  My writing project has helped me realize that I had never authentically set any personal bearing in life.  In short, I was a bit lost and over the last year every month that passed presented a more uncomfortable feeling.  There were times of frustration, sadness and some downright scary emotional places.  This exercise drove me to experience what some might call a depression of sorts, always questioning if what I was doing was the “right” thing, staying focused too heavily on what other people in my life were concerned with and all of this thinking and analyzing took a toll on my psyche.  In the end, though, it has taught me more than I could have hoped for. 

I have an “internal compass” of sorts and I believe you all have one too.  Some call it intuition or gut feelings, but I refer to it as true north because I recognize that part of life is learning how to get back on course when life naturally veers you off course.  I’m not trying to suggest that once you find your “path” in life that all will work out and you’ll waltz through this journey.  On the contrary, I’m learning that the nasty, frustrating and down right shitty parts of life are what make the rest of it so freaking beautiful.  I’m expecting to feel lost and as I’ve defined what true north means to me, so I’m beginning to feel more prepared with how to deal with challenges.  Learning along the way has been a tremendous exercise too and when I do experience challenges and push through them, life’s experiences are that much more rewarding.  I’ve also learned that If you don’t have an internal agreement with yourself regarding a mental place of balance, integrity, strength, passion and vision I believe you’ll continue to feel lost, so please spend some time each day and reflect on the areas of life that make you smile, that challenge you, that make you want to get out of the bed in the morning and these are your true north principles.

I was conditioned to believe that one can’t put his or her “passions” into life holistically.  I believed that you needed to have passion for work and then some different passion for family and then for working out, so as I defined my true north, I realized that I was inventing a way to meld my guiding principles into my daily life and instead of having to find different passions for different aspects of life, I’m taking my life’s passions and am applying them more regularly to living each day.  That subtle change is creating a positive ripple with work, parenting, marriage, etc. The performance and enjoyment of my career is simply a by-product of a decision to live more authentically around that over referenced “true north” set of principles.  When I set my principles (effort around being more compassionate, being a coach to those around me and having a calm demeanour with people I come in contact with daily), I felt better.  In late October of 2011 I began “flipping the tables” on my old thinking and have begun to live a truer north existence and my life is reaping the benefits.  I had been sitting and waiting for various aspects of my life to give me opportunity and I appreciate that while I wait, time passes and I don’t want to get caught standing still. 

I urge you to work to define your true north and when you realize that it isn’t a place; it is a set of personal values, interests and energy generating passions then you can begin to apply your principles to the various aspects of life and I think you’ll see a more engaging path.  Remember, the fun of life isn’t getting some where; it’s keeping your eyes wide open as you travel through it.

Chapter 4: Stand up and applaud...

Kids appreciate the little things in life so much better (and more often) than adults do.  Classic example, I was at church on Christmas Eve and during a very poetic and specific moment of the mass, a time in the Catholic tradition where the entire church would normally be “pin drop” silent, a 2-3 year old little boy opted to STAND on the kneeler (as the priest closed one of his prayers) and he screamed ALRIGHT (followed by intense clapping), which made the Mother crap herself, a few bitter old Catholics look back in horror and I couldn’t help smiling (and hysterically laugh on the inside-because it wasn’t one of my kids this time). Why did I laugh and not get pissed…because this kid got “it”.  It was a beautiful spot in the ceremony, so why not applaud, right?  When beautiful moments strike you, I think we would all be in a better space if we were willing to acknowledge that beauty.  I don’t care if it is during a mass, watching a sunset, seeing snow fall for the first time of the season or watching your children sleep.  These examples are present, regularly, in our daily lives and when is the last time you stood up and gave a standing-O for any one of them?  I know that I take them for granted and I’m sure you do too.  The pace of my job has picked up in the last year, Deena still works insane hours and we juggle the three kids, so I have every freaking excuse under the sun as to why I might not applaud my kids sleeping faces (reality: I’m not running the risk of waking those crazy maniacs up after a long day, but I’ll applaud on the inside more often, I promise).  Like most parents, I’m exhausted and need some peace and quiet, but I see so many beautiful things daily and I have chosen to not recognize them.  I see the sunrise, daily, on my way to work (I opt to bitch about the sun being in my eyes as I drive east opposed to applauding) and as I ate my second helping of Christmas dinner (once on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas day) I know that I did not take enough time to appreciate that I have the opportunity to eat every day and instead, I spent more time wondering if we got our Christmas cards out in time, the right presents purchased for everyone and made sure the house looked appropriate for guests (who might drop by at any time during the break).  Most of these things had nothing to do with me, but had the underlying tone of hoping others would think positively about me.  Again, not one single ovation to any of the beauty around me and I’m disappointed in myself.

I talk about it in each article (in case we have a new reader or two).  I’m using my daily writing from the last year (each day from April to December) to spark an “on line” book that is targeted at helping people remember to slow down and focus a bit on the more critical elements of life.  I hope to spark some interest in “stopping the chase” and I although I was inspired by my cheering church friend, I was equally inspired by my coach in late spring of this year.  OnMay 20, 2011, I wrote:

“My job is starting to settle down a bit and I’m making a more conscious effort to relate the work I do to a means to help others instead of the traditional grind of a “job”.  For the first time in my career and for the first time in life I’ve become more apt to appreciate what I have versus staring out into the future and being pissed about what I didn’t earn yet.  Home life has the same set of feelings tied to It and I’m realizing how important it is for happiness to be a choice, not something that I can gain by doing certain things, hanging out with certain people, reading certain books or buying certain objects.”

Now I’d be full of shit if I tried to tell you that I have located some magic cocktail that enables me to think this way ALL of the time.  I still wrestle with the “same old same old” when it comes to parenting, employment, friendships, marriage and any other aspect of life that might challenge me, but I can say that the coaching I’ve secured and the self awareness I’ve grown more comfortable with has helped me recognize when I’m getting back into my old ways. I apologize more often (when I muck something up) and I focus on catching my selfish behaviour prior to botching something up within the lives of the people I come in contact with daily.

I look at how I raise my kids and how we are our own worst critics.  God help us if our children might be the crazy ones at a dinner table.  The saddest part about this feeling is the rare time that I'm really frustrated with my kids, my frustration typically stems from fear that another parent may look down on me as a “weak parent” with rotten children.  I think people look through the same lens about their careers too.  We wonder if our children or spouses would be better off if we pushed more at work, earned even more, but ran the risk of sacrificing the only thing that really should matter on this planet; the “time” we have during this life and who we choosing to spend it with.  Instead, we work and work and for who?  Generally, I find people bust their asses to make more money as a way to cover up a void somewhere in life.  Maybe parents or friends or colleagues said you couldn’t do something, so you go HARD to prove them wrong and you make yourself miserable in the process.  Pretty silly, isn’t it?

In short, I’m nowhere near perfect and I am going to work even harder in 2012 (God willing) to focus on remembering that I get to choose whether I want to be happy or whether I want to walk the planet pissed off because I enable other people’s opinions to drive my behaviour.  I don’t want to be frustrated at things (my bank account, my business card, my house, my children’s grades or the car that I drive).

If I could have one wish granted…it would be to take that church-kid’s approach to life and react to the beauty that surrounds us so frequently.  In short, I’d like to get up and applaud more often in 2012.  I probably won’t see that little guy again any time soon, so I hope he keeps applauding at life’s wonders and that his parents are wise enough to realize that they shouldn’t be embarrassed of him, they should be proud of him.  Hell, if more of us acted the way he did, the better our lives would be in the long run.

Chapter 3: Everyone is a genius

"Everyone is a genius.  But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid" - A. Einstein I love this quote and the funny picture of Einstein riding his bike that comes with the quote (thanks to whoever posted this on Facebook). Yeah, yeah, yeah- I know it is cliché to quote Einstein, but when you read the quote and let it marinate for a minute, I think you'll understand why I enjoy it so much.

As I look back over the last year of my life it continues to amaze me how I struggle to so plainly see the mistakes I repeat and even more disturbing is recognizing that I might be the fish who is being asked (and judged) by my ability to climb a tree.  Here is a journal entry fromMay 2, 2011:

When people ask me what I do for a living, I struggle to answer.  What I’d like to say is…I’m a guy who works to make the world a more balanced place.  I give structure to fathers who lack it and enable more families to spend time together.  I write, speak and coach about topics that other fathers use to “decompress” and awaken to the fact that we aren’t here solely for work.  Although we may have been conditioned to be ‘absent’ in order to focus on earning money for our families, we are being trapped into believing that work is the benchmark for defining our lives and if we aren’t careful, we’ll expect our children to mimic our lives and define themselves by the job they have, the hours they’ve worked and the W-2 they produce.

I don't think this feeling is foreign to the majority of people who would read this article and I’m confident that we've all struggled with feeling like the “fish out of water” with respect to some aspect of life; work, a new relationship, a new school, a new job and the list could go on and on.  For the last 16 years I have been working in a business that requires a strong knowledge of human behaviour and a business that demands a knack for anticipating how people will react during stressful and anxiety filled times.  Suffice it to say, I feel very comfortable with identifying other people's problems, am getting better at identifying my own, and am still well below average when it comes to learning from the struggles I live every day and finding ways to apply them to the management of my own life.

So back to Einstein’s "fish" quote...I'm married to a teacher, am the son of a teacher, have a brother who is a teacher and both of my sisters-in-law are teachers, so I have the opportunity to listen to each of them talk through their educational styles and we openly discuss how challenging it can be to educate in a "one style fits all" methodology.  It doesn’t take heavy research to recognize that we have a systemic challenge when it comes to educating and some of this challenge fosters people feeling “stupid” when in fact they are truly geniuses (fish) being asked to climb the proverbial tree.  Think about how we begin our formal education.  We meander through elementary and middle school, get more focused in high school and then we get the first real "tests" that help define us (SAT & ACT).  We take those test scores, compare and contrast them with that funny thing called a GPA and this becomes the first major indicator of our initial genius factor, right?  In short, we begin to sort the masses into one of two piles; the "going to make it" pile or the "might not be that bright" pile. 

Yes, I know that we aren't quite that cold as a society, but it isn't that far off.  I have friends who were told they weren't going to cut it, maybe they shouldn't pursue college and the assembly line was going to be a good spot for the remainder of their working days (all because of 1 or 2 learning measures) and conversely, I had friends who were labelled the "bright ones", the kids who really knew how to learn and the ones who were going to be our nation's next generation of leaders (again, all because of 1 or 2 learning measures).  I'm sure it wouldn't shock you to know that plenty of these kids who were told to "hit the assembly line" now successfully run profitable businesses and manage organizations in the Fortune 500 and there were kids who were defined as “the bright ones” who are now leading from a bar stool wondering where life went.

In both scenarios, did these young men and women get judged by how well they could "climb a tree" when their real gift might have been swimming like a fish?  As we migrate into our work lives, the same archaic talent management process repeats itself.  There are certain people who just "get it" when it comes to new challenges, new projects and new responsibilities.  These people seem to have a natural gift for managing the ebb and flow of the business world and their counterparts are the people who need to have their hands held a bit.  They need some more pointed coaching, education and if this is afforded, they'll perform (sometimes outperform) the folks who ‘naturally’ learn.  I think we, as business leaders, tend to forget how critical it is to recognize how people learn (auditory, experiential, visual...) and how to align their natural skills to the organization, projects or tasks they might be asked to support. 

Einstein's quote, when applied to how we interact and educate each other through life, could help reduce anxiety and should significantly elevate the engagement of people relative to their personal and professional lives.  I look back on the times I’ve been the most engaged, the most energized and the most productive and it’s when I’m using my natural talents.  This helps foster drive and passion and I’m sure Einstein knew that there were areas even he wasn’t meant to spend time on.  Each one of us can find our natural talents if we have the self awareness to define our strengths and the courage to teach and the humility to ask for help and the willingness to learn from those around us.

We all have genius inside us, so don’t let one task define who you are or how well you can perform in life.

Chapter 2: Is there a creature living in your basement?

In case you missed the last entry, my writing comes from a place that requires openness and honesty (and a little bit of craziness).  It comes from a place that is a bit scary, in that, I’m sharing struggles, self defined failures and some successes to entice other people to begin sharing their challenges too, with the ultimate realization that all of us have similar struggles (whether it be with relationships, work, parenting, or whatever else life might throw at you).  This place of introspection has been good for me and challenging, but that’s the fun of it.  I like situations that have a pinch of chaos and I think a little chaos is good for us.  I’m conducting my own analysis on life and re-reading a journal I’ve been writing in for the last 9 months, so I can take some of my experiences and share them with the hope that I’d spark conversations, offer help, or at least a good laugh to anyone going through similar. Thematically, my life has more fear than I’d like to admit.  This fear was more difficult to deal with when I thought I was alone in these thoughts, but I’m observing more and more that most people are living in a similar state of fear.  Yes, this is a topic I wrote about in months passed and it’s a topic that I’ll continue to write about because I’m passionate about it.  It’s an interesting experience (being scared or fearful) and we live with it most of our lives.  Alright, here’s an example; flash back to your childhood for a minute…Mom or Dad screams for you to run to the basement and get something from the freezer or maybe you have to get clothes from the dryer, but nonetheless, off you tromp to the “dark, quiet and eerie” basement.

As you step into the basement, you rationalize with yourself that nothing lives in your basement.  At least nothing that should be able to eat, gnaw or nibble on you- but all of those movies, stories and books you’ve experienced begin to push a bit of adrenaline into your veins and you realize that you are “scared” of that dark nasty basement.  Oh well, you can push through it, right?  You run into the basement, grab whatever you need and then turn to run up the stairs and back to the light and freedom of the first floor of your house.  And what do you do?  I can tell you what you don’t do… for the love of God, you don’t look over your shoulder because that creature that lives in the basement will be standing right behind you on the steps, right?  You bolt, like lighting, up to safety and what happens?  Your fear dissipates.  All of that drama for a freaking pair of jeans out of the dryer.  Interesting though, that kind of fear makes us active, doesn’t it?  When we get scared we either fight or flight (so say the great psychologists), and in the end…we “do” something and that action helps us move passed the fear.

That is healthy fear and I’ve been taught that there are two types of fear.  We should expect to live with some level of fear in life and the trick is to learn how to anticipate that fear, know how our bodies will react to the fear and then work out methods to “push through” or tackle those fears that present problems for us in life.  That, in my opinion, is healthy fear (like the troll who lived in my parent’s basement who chased us up the steps).  He was good people because the fear he helped to generate got us moving.

As we get older, I’ve watched my own life and have read entries from my journal that allude to a more powerful and dangerous fear.  This is a fear that paralyzes activity.  It’s the fear you might get from thinking you’ll fail at something and the fear that comes from wondering what others might “say” about your failed attempt.  With enough of that fear in your life, what happens? You stop attempting.  With respect to work- maybe you stop taking on larger projects for the “fear” of putting yourself in a situation to fail or maybe you refuse to show your true personality for fear that it might not be welcomed.

I spent the first 13 years of my career steadily progressing, earning more money, earning fancy titles and the entire time I was “struggling” daily.  Freaked out about what might happen or where I might fail and you know what I’ve learned…it held me back.  The times in life when I have acted from a genuine place and refused to show concern of outcome were some of the best and most productive projects, meetings, coaching sessions or emotional states I’ve ever been involved with.  I recognized in early April that my new role, which was supposed to be a “walk in the park” and a career move that would enable me some time to step away from the high paced stress I’d faced in my previous positions, wasn’t going to be much different than anything else I’ve faced professionally.  Our processes, national structure and challenging market were all going to require “action” and my early concern about taking a perceived “step back” might backfire (if I wasn’t successful) and I’d look like a fool.  All of this thought and fear created a paralyzing feeling, which generated anxiety.  I knew that letting emails pile in, meetings back up and not moving forward would hurt me, so I started to organize myself, created action lists and I focused on moving forward, one step at a time. 

Remember, action can remedy fear all day long and I captured a thought that verifies this onApril 11, 2011:

 “I’m getting less and less nervous about work as I realize that sometimes you just have to jump in and do something…it doesn’t pay off to plan and plan and plan, at some point, you have to “do”.  When in doubt, do something because this activity or action gives off energy of purpose and it helps with the anxiety of new tools, new people, new technology…so off I go.”

I have read hundreds of my own entries and each time there is a down turn or negativity with respect to my emotional state, it can be tied back to stagnate behaviour.  I believe this is something all of us have experienced, but few will be willing to openly admit.  Most people will pretend to be “active”, but I’m talking about being active with a purpose.  When you have a direction to go, a place to get to…it becomes very easy to map out where you’re headed, find the mechanism to get you there and GO.  But life…it doesn’t regularly show you where you are going and that’s where people get confused.  They question where they should be going, what they should be doing and all of this wonder can lead to less and less activity. 

I carry a bookmark and it has a quote from Socrates, “Wisdom begins in wonder”, which is something of a personal mantra.  The one thing I would add to his philosophical point…don’t forget to make a plan of where that wonder is going to take you and then build that mental map of how you are going to get there and finally, as a good friend of mine used to say… “Do something”, because standing around is only going to let the creature in the basement bite you on the ass.

Chapter 1: Where it comes from...

I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been writing in a journal (daily), so I could look back and capture “trends” around my thoughts and actions and potentially find ways to look a bit deeper into how I parent, how I act as a husband, brother, son and any of the other roles I have in life.  I’ve struggled, like most of us probably do, with healthy living, parenting, friendships and marriage, so I wanted to turn inward and see how interesting it might be to reflect back on a year in my life.  As I look back on this year of entries, it was, at a minimum…eye opening. Reading my journal was more challenging than I expected it to be.  This stuff isn’t easy to read because you create unfiltered thoughts while writing in a journal versus throwing something on a site like this one.  There is no editing while you journal, no deleting and definitely no “starting over”.  The words and thoughts are dumped onto a page and then they are locked away.  I write each morning and try and clear all of the thoughts, emotions, and mental states from the previous day; capturing them for future review.  The raw nature of the words can be fun to re-read, but the thought of sharing them with other people wasn’t as pleasant.  A friend from work popped into my office the other day and noticed I’d been writing and she asked what I was doing, so I shared the concept.  She immediately went for the journal and asked if she could read some of the entries and I threw her the “heisman” and pulled the journal out of her hands.

The second she touched the journal, I barked, “Not a chance” and pulled the journal back from her.  As I threw the journal into a drawer in my office, I vividly remembered all of the things I’d wrote over the last 9 months; work, marriage, parenting and my successes and failures with each.  The thought of someone else reading those thoughts made me incredibly anxious.  The articles that are posted on my site have gone through heavy editing and most of the stories are opinions of mine, but not necessarily direct stories, so sharing more of my mental gore is a bit intimidating.  I know some of my articles can be repetitive and they might not be offering enough advice or guidance, so when I reconsidered adding more of my journal’s thoughts to these articles, it was exciting because I’m planning on taking what I’ve already lived through and throw it out for the review of others (and maybe some learning & teaching will come along the way).

Overall, this is why I titled this first “chapter”, where it all comes from…

When we talk about living life, most of us aren’t comfortable with sharing all the little details like I am.  Who wants to share the things they are scared of, the areas where they feel like they fall short or the behaviours they are no longer proud of?  This, for me, is where the core of my writing comes from and I’ve been coached to no longer be afraid of sharing some of this content.  As a matter of fact, sharing the good or the bad has been a huge help for me and the honesty around life’s fears and shortcomings have enabled me to do some things differently and learn that lots of other people experience exactly what I’ve lived through.  This is where I want people to engage.  I want more discussions about the challenges in life, because we can help each other.  I believe these fears prohibit us from sharing how we feel or discussing areas we’d like to change.  These changes can be used in your professional life, your personal life, with friends or with strangers.  The amount of fear I see in people is growing and this fear is still present in my life (I’ve seen it as a trend in my journal entries).  In reality, how many of use really “share” the details of what we are feeling or why we are feeling a certain way or how an experience might make us feel?  It’s these feelings of fear or anxiety that prevent most people from being truly authentic and I witness all types of people struggle with it.

Take this journal entry fromApril 8, 2011and you’ll see what I mean; 

“Reality…I’m not a huge fan of doing what I do for a living, but without work what do we do?   I’m not overly excited about how I treat my marriage, I’m concerned about my parenting style- I’m so freaking inconsistent with the kids- and I keep looking ahead in life, you know, “what’s next”… but haven’t ever afforded myself the time to stay focused in the present, which leads me down the path of taking things for granted, wanting what other people have and it disables me from being  focused on any specific life area to really tap into the balance and positive energy I’m seeking.”

That is about as honest as I can be as it relates to how I was feeling in April of this year.  Yes, it freaks me out a bit to put some of that in writing, but I think the value in this honesty is important.  What I do for a living, the way I handle my marriage, my parenting and my daily responsibilities are in my control, aren’t they?  I had someone push me a few years ago during a coaching session and it came out that one of my personal concerns was acting and living like everything was “great” when I felt inside like I was falling apart.  I call it the “bullshit” factor (what if I’m not as smart as I think I am, what if I’m not as successful in my career as I’ve led people to believe or what if I really am a bad parent or husband?).  My internal thoughts conflicted with my external presentation and that created serious personal struggle.  Smile on the outside, anger on the inside.  As my coach listened, she simply responded with, “well…if you were “less intelligent” or “weak as a professional” or “a bad parent or husband”, wouldn’t you want to know?  

As simple the statement was, she was right.  Sharing these types of fears will help you face some of those hidden challenges.  If you do nothing else in life, please try and be honest with yourself and be willing to address those things that concern you (and include the people involved who you are comfortable with or find a coach or therapist to confide in) and be willing to adjust your behaviours if you do, in fact, want adjusting.  If you don’t like the way something is going in life, you have the ability to adjust, modify and change it. 

What I don’t recommend is continuing to hide from these fears, which I have done (as you’ll read in future posts), because it will ultimately lead to more anxiety and frustration.  And…don’t fall prey to the theory of; doing the same thing every day and expecting different results (this will only lead to insanity).  I have found that writing, talking and expressing these fears helps me locate others who have the same challenges and we can share ideas on how to better improve our situations.  Whether it’s a new career (or reinvention of the one you have), or the thought of being a more involved parent, or to be a better friend to those around you…each of these facets of life can be altered if you build a plan and focus on the change.

This is where it all comes from…my desire to share failure and challenge is rooted in the hope that others can learn the power of sharing too and maybe all of us will be better off for it.

Stop chasing and start experiencing...

As you all know, writing is something that I aspire to do full time, so I’ve been working to build content that I could share, more regularly, with the intent of helping other people recognize the curve balls life will throw at us and to be better prepared to handle those curve balls as we walk through life.  I have been writing in a journal, every day, for the last year capturing what goes on in my life (and in my head) hoping that some of my struggles, mistakes and successes could be used by others as they navigate through their journey.  I started reading some of my hand-written gems last month and realized that I have plenty of content to share and more chaos than I’d like to admit.  In reality, to write full time, I’m estimating that it will take 20,000 readers per month, so no time like the present to begin a more regular schedule of “blog posts” (I get 200-300 readers a month, so what’s another 19,000 & change, right)?  It’s time to play back 2011 and offer a synopsis of  one year in the life of one “crazy” man who worked to transform from being a serial chaser of “things” and focus on becoming more grounded in experiencing life for what it has to offer.  Some of you know my story.  Yes, I let my ego and some of my insecurities fuel certain actions in my life.  In hindsight, I grew up believing that I needed to impress other people, keep the peace with people and ensure that conflict wasn’t something that I was generating.  Don’t misunderstand me, I had a solid childhood, but what I’ve recognized is that having my own opinions wasn’t natural to me.  As I got older I realized that it was going to be necessary to have opinions and even more necessary to learn how to be humble enough to occasionally adjust the opinions you have formed.  It’s helpful when forming opinions to have some life experiences and I hadn’t really had any early in life, so it became more challenging for me to form my own.  It was immediately following my undergraduate degree that I started to pay attention to the pressures that all of us face as we begin this new phase in life and honestly, I was ill-equipped to take a stance.  The way I figure it, I’ve been able to become more cognizant of my own life choices over the last 16 years and that’s because I’ve had 16 years of climbing the corporate ladder, attending graduate school, spending to justify, buying “things” that had limited necessity or value and if life threw a curve, I fell prey to the game of blaming other people for the mistakes I had made.

As I’ve grown up a bit I have become more passionate about how contradictory our society is.  Life has some pretty comical “asks” of us…but society’s pressures take the cake.  We are taught to work hard, have a stable career, save our money, raise children and yes, we bought into the story that all of these things (your house, your title, your bank account and even your car may reflect on how well you are doing as a person).  If this continues, we are setting up too many people for a set of expectations that aren’t really theirs to begin with.  I am no longer afraid to admit that I racked up significant debt in my 20’s and 30’s, tested my relationship with my wife and flubbed a bit with my parenting skills.  It was 13 long years (1995 until 2008) before I realized and accepted that I was too tired with my life and wasn’t confident that I could keep up the façade any longer.  I needed to make a change and as anyone will tell you, cliché or not, change isn’t something that someone else will give you, you have to take responsibility and change the behaviour in question.

Back to my daily journal (thanks for the gift Mom & Dad)…I’ve been looking back and paying close attention to the triggers that put me into the negative places I’ve visited.  My wife and I committed to paying back the debt I referenced earlier and we are fast approaching the close of a 5 year program that will have us debt free.  I’m more active as a father now and I’m more physically active too.  My running, my writing and my family are priorities in my life and it has taken years for these actions to become habitual.  As I read back through passages from the last 8 months, I am beginning to believe that most of what I was experiencing was a self fulfilling prophecy and I’d bet there are others in the same boat. 

Most mornings that I wake up I tend to think about the emails that await me, the practices I have to run to with the kids, the toilet that needs a new part or the ceiling that could use a coat of paint, the car that needs a new mirror, dinner plans for the week and oh yeah, squeak in your run, read a book, write an article, save for retirement and be polite to everyone while in process.  It’s this pace that I am working to slow down and have become accepting that the pace may not change (while I have small children), so I’m working to enjoy it versus fight it.

What I learned from my introspection is this... It is painful to chase someone’s expectations under the cloak that they are your own.  I have found it more rewarding to do things based on my own principles, even if these principles run contrary to others.  My recommendation is to refrain from chasing anything.  Slow down and experience everything you can (even if it is something frustrating).  Excel at your passions, not because you think someone else might be happy with you, so those passions and your efforts can help the people you encounter daily.  Get physically active, not because it will help you lose weight, because your body and mind can become more alert and cognizant to everything around you.  And finally, something I haven’t been great at…spend time with your family and friends.  They will be gone before you expect it and what a shame it can be to waste the experiences those people bring into your life.  I hope you enjoy hearing about my 2011 and share your thoughts and I’ll look forward to your feedback.

I'm tired of starting over...

I adore change.  I like it when things shake up and I think it keeps people sharp when they have to walk that line between consistency and potential chaos.  Hell, we all know that in a moment’s notice the world could be flipped upside down on us and honestly, I don’t mind it. Let’s take work as an example.  My friends, family and colleagues know that I like a challenge and that I like to move around.  I’m not concerned by the process of seeking out new opportunities or learning a new role within an existing company.  I’ve worked for 7 companies in 16 years and I haven’t been laid off or fired, so where some people get concerned with that much change, I typically find the positive with it and learn as much as I can where ever I am .

As I creep toward my 40^th birthday (I still have a year to go, let’s not rush anything), the ability to deal with change has been a blessing and a curse.  It has enabled me to learn from different people, to experience different regions of the country, helped me push the limits of physical fitness and to explore the limits of unhealthy behaviours too (I’m a bit like Oprah in the weight gain, weigh loss category).  In short, my openness to change has served me well, but it has also supported a frustrating and repeated challenge that I want to break up with.

With change comes starting over.  One thing ends and another thing has to begin.  I’ve heard rumours that it takes 28 days of repeated behaviour to form a habit (seems painfully long to a guy who likes so much change), so I’m going to try and form one, starting tonight (told you I loved change and new beginnings).  The habit I’m working on is the habit of healthier living.  I recognize that you’ve all learned about my ability to eat late at night (totally destroying all of the freaking running I do) and how I’ve been looking for a cure for this glutinous plague.  Well, I think I’ve found another potential remedy for my piss poor food habits.

Just as an FYI, here is a window into my typical week.  It’s pretty funny.  Monday is ALWAYS my “start over” day.  The day where I decree to focus on healthy life style, stay away from the beer and late night snacking and begin living on the fruits of the earth (proteins, fruits, vegetables and all whole grains).  If I only lived on Mondays I’d be the healthiest freaking dude on the planet.  Tuesdays are the focus day.  This is the day that my body typically goes through a carbohydrate detoxification and I have those crazy food headaches (but I’m staying healthy).  Wednesday is the day where I start to feel less packed full of gravy and cheese sticks and then it happens; damn you Thursday, damn you!  Thursdays are a day where I start to feel good.   I justify that it’s ok to have a big dinner, throw in desert and then that little voice says… “Hell, you work out, so toss in a snack or two before bed too because you’ve run a couple times during the week and deserve to eat what you want”.  If we wanted to use metaphors, Thursday is my mid-air collision and Friday and Saturday becomes the tail spin and death spiral.  Sunday morning rolls around and I typically look in the mirror and say, “Come on, you really need to focus and get back to that healthy living, don’t you?”  So as a justification for the upcoming healthy living Monday, I tell myself that I’m “starting over” with the healthy focus and it’s ok to give myself one more day of limitless behaviour, which generally means omelettes, Mexican food and we’ll wash breakfast and lunch down with a pizza dinner…because, remember, Monday will be the day we adjust our unhealthy living.  If the previous passage exhausted you, have some sympathy, I live this chaos.

Today I’m going to trick up the world and begin living healthier on a Friday.  Aha, total creativity with that switcher-ooo.  As much as I like change, it’s time to recognize that I’ve been consistently BAD with how I treat my food intake and if I really like change that much, it shouldn’t take that much effort (28 days apparently) to make better choices and focus on taking little steps versus attempting giant leaps. 

I know I’m a bit extreme, but I’d bet that I’m not alone out there.  I have seen too many people live this way (whether their habit is excessive work hours, food intake, alcohol consumption or all of the above).  As I see it, the pressure to make massive behaviour change can become too daunting to deal with and people revert back to the very behaviour they would like to break and they do even more of it.  Yes, I’ve set some lofty goals in life and as I reflect back on the times where I achieved the majority of my goals, were the times I focused on making the little, consistent choices every day.  Yes, I like change, so my first goal of the “simple goals” era; run in the morning.  But seeing that I’m going to run in the morning, I guess I can have some chocolate ice cream before bed…

Finding your rhythm...

I was at a wedding last weekend for a good family friend and I learned a sweet life lesson while enjoying a long weekend with my wife.  We spent 4 days away from the insanity of parenthood, which is always nice and the area of the country we visited (central coastalCalifornia) was unbelievably beautiful.  Coming from a dude who is “naturally insulated” for 65-70 degree weather versus 90 and humid, I really loved this region of the country! We attended the rehearsal dinner on Friday afternoon, retreated back to the hotel for some cocktails and relaxation and on Saturday morning I completed a 5 mile run along the coast, which beats the hell out of running on a treadmill at 545am on any Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday (as I typically do).  When I returned from my run everyone was flying around the hotel, so we grabbed a nice breakfast and started shuffling people to the groom’s house, the church and a few other places where people have to go during “wedding day”.

The ceremony went off without a hitch and approximately 100 people migrated to a spectacular resort on the coast.  We had drinks overlooking the ocean, enjoyed a stellar dinner and then the anxiety kicked in.  The DJ starts off slow (you know…a few bad slow songs, ease people in with some “Motown” and then it’s GO TIME).  The lights dim (even lower than before) and out come the Vegas style club songs.  Regardless of who is getting married, I typically watch the women bust to the floor and most of the guys hang back, drink and talk sports or business - pretending that we aren’t freaking out that our wives, girlfriends or dates will be coming over to the table with that look of, don’t you love me? If you really loved me- you would shake your money maker with me.  Someone pass me a pill-the anxiety is steadily increasing.

Anxiety kicks in because I am in a suit, I have the God given talent to break into a sweat while eating, so dancing in front of strangers and spraying sweat all over them isn’t typically a “cool” thing to do and when you dance at a wedding under these circumstances it becomes a painfully stiff shuffle back and forth to prevent the horror of having someone politely suggest that I “mop” my forehead because I resemble a runner at mile 12 of a half marathon.

All that aside- the music continued and I humoured my wife by dancing for a bit (yes, for a big dude, I can shake my stuff and I’ve got some mad skills), so I bounced along for 2 songs and then retreated for the safety of a cocktail and a chair at the dinner table.

As I made it back to the table I heard a small eruption of cheers as an LMFAO song comes on.  I know the song and although it’s “glow stick worthy”, I’ve never given the tune a standing-O, so I looked back at the floor a bit confused as to what was going on and realized the cheers were for the son of the groom who was in the process of going “all in” on the dance floor.  This dude was fired up and he let all hell fly onto the dance floor.  Arms flailing, jumping, and bouncing and then all of a sudden… EVERYONE was going crazy.  His willingness to be “fearless” on the dance floor and the flash mob he incited was infectious enough that I even decided to leave the cocktail behind and spend the next hour and a half jumping around like a complete jack-ass, but having an amazing time while doing it.

The point to this little ramble is simple.  Sometimes, if you are looking to find your rhythm (whether in work, school or on the dance floor at a friend’s wedding) you have to be willing to “let go” a bit and run the risk of looking like a fool, sweating on someone or blowing out a hammy while dancing to a club mix of LMFAO (like I did).  I know too many people who have sat at the metaphorical “dinner table” and regretted not getting out and dancing a bit.

My new found friend and dance machine was able to teach a lesson without even knowing it and I really appreciated it!  Dance like fools my friends, dance like fools (and let’s not kid ourselves-the women love a dude who is willing to dance)!

Do you have an answer to that question?

What would you say to him? It was odd walking into the dining area and seeing a room full of people, eyes staring back at you, as they try to figure out who was the next person to walk into the “how have they turned out” judgement sanctuary (it really wasn’t that bad, but it makes for a dramatic lead in sentence).  About 70 of us had come together for dinner, cocktails and “catching up” and after a couple hours of drinking, the conversations were becoming more and more interesting.  And then she asked the question…

What would you say to him?

It’s amazing how decades away from people can create such distance, but ironic how such a short amount of time together (and a few cocktails) can break down barriers as if we had just been in class together.  We rehashed stories, laughed at how we had all changed and then laughed even harder how some of us really hadn’t.  It was hilarious to even experience some of the same fears and insecurities about where to go after the party, what we’d talk about in small groups and even though it was a little intimidating to be around all of these people, it felt really comforting to see everyone. 

What would you say to him?

Reunions are an interesting tradition, especially those from high school.  I still remember walking the halls of my high school like it was yesterday and hell, truth be told, I still hang out with the same group of guys I did while attending high school, with the only subtle difference that we now meet out for dinner on Friday nights cruising in our own mini-vans, not our parents (sad, I know).  We’ve all heard and have probably used the cliché phrase, “time flies”, but this past weekend was living proof.  Some of us had gained weight, some of us had lost weight, some of us stayed the same, but overall…we had all appeared to grow up.  The conversations weren’t forced as they felt 20 years ago and the questions were genuine (as were the responses). 

What would you say to him?

At the tail end of the night, a friend of mine who had flown in fromCaliforniato join us for the “party” pointed to my name tag and asked, “What would you say to him?”  I was a bit taken back, partially because I had been drinking for 4 hours and was totally confused by who the hell she was talking about.  So when she hit me a little harder the second time and said, “What would you say to him?” she asked.  I laughed, because she was referring to the picture on my name tag (senior picture from ’91- and yes, I looked good), so all Socrates’esque I blurted out…If I could see myself 20 years ago, I’d tell “me” not to let others dictate who I was going to “be” and that what I was going to experience in those high school years was going to be a small part of a long and incredibly powerful walk through life, so don’t be too happy or too sad about how those years went.  That was exhausting, wasn’t it?  There aren’t any bad answers to a deep question like that, especially an answer fuelled by bad Coors Light from a golf course bar tap.

What would you say to him?

As I fought my two day hang-over and my wife had left with our kids for Florida (I’ll be meeting them at Disney on Friday), I’ve had some time to lay on the couch and contemplate what I would really say if I could bump into myself 20 years ago.  It would be pretty cool to be able to offer advice to yourself from the vantage point of a 20 year “look back”(but in reality, at 18, I wouldn’t have taken the advice, who am I kidding).  That aside, my answer is probably a little lengthier than the quick answer I gave at my reunion, so hear it goes...  I’d tell him to make more mistakes and that making mistakes is great proof that you really trying to experience things.  I’d tell him that “smart” isn’t defined by a grade point (I’ve watched friends carve negative paths out in life based around the stigma placed on them because they had less than A’s and B’s).  Irony strikes again because when all is said and done, the people who I knew with the C’s (and sometimes D’s) are as intelligent today as some of the 4.0 students I knew.  I’d tell him to welcome everyone into his circle and then determine whether they were good for him, not to go the opposite route and judge first (because you never know who you might need in your circle 20 years from now).

 What would you say to him?

What would you say to yourself if you had the chance?  It’s interesting to reflect back and it excites me for one main reason.  We are going to keep on learning.  I’m only 38 and if I’m fortunate to be on this planet for another 30, 40 or 50 years I hope I can look back and laugh about how little I knew at 38.  That, to me, is the greatest part about the lives we live.  Our life experiences keep growing, changing and morphing and we probably won’t recognize it until decades have passed us by.

Thanks for the questionKrishna.  It was great seeing all of you from the class of ’91 and I’ll be curious to know what our conversations feel like in another 20 years and what advice we might be able to give our younger selves in 20 more years.

A new way to "grow up".

What do you want to “be” when you grow up? I have written about this in previous posts, but this concept has been bothering me for some time now.  What has been bothering me you ask?  Well, the answer to the question I pose in the first sentence of this article is a bear trap, isn’t it?  We ask everyone this question at some point in life.  Our teachers asked it, our parents asked it, our friends asked it and as we got older and realized that we weren’t living up to our self-imposed expectations, we started asking ourselves that question all over again.  Truth be told, I wasn’t ever clear on how to answer this question.  Something didn’t feel right about the answers I came up with and more honestly, I never had any clear cut view on what I wanted to “be” when I grew up and I wonder how many people feel the same way? 

What do you want to “be” when you grow up?

I am looking at this question from a different angle and have applied some of my recent coaching to see if it makes sense and here is what I’ve come up with.  When we have this question asked of us or we ask it of someone else, aren’t we asking the question so we better understand or plant the seed with someone relative to what “job” they might have as adults?  That is counter-intuitive to me, because when we get jobs and “grow up” then most of us start fantasizing about ways to not have those jobs anymore and we may begin to look for ways, mid-career, to become something new or refresh the current job we have.  In short, I think asking this question implies that we have one choice to make and we should stick by that choice, which doesn’t seem to be plausible in the real world.  I want to change the answer paradigm when this question is posed, because if I don’t want to answer this question, even today, how can I expect young children to answer it (and fully understand the implications of those choices).  I’m learning what I really want to “be” when I do grow up, but “growing up” doesn’t have to imply that we have to anchor down and stop developing and dreaming.  Let’s be careful to not answer the question of what to “be” with professions, job titles, and monetary plans.  I think I have finally realized why I couldn’t remember wanting to be anything when I was growing up?  I didn’t like having to answer with a job title because it felt to constraining. 

What do I want to “be” when I grow up?

I want to be relaxed.  I’d like to be a traveller.  I want to be nomadic with experiences, but rooted in one community.  I want to be a teacher (and it doesn’t have to be in a classroom) and I want to be able to make choices, learn from them, adjust life when needed and never lose the spirit to make new ones.  Those are the things I want to “be” and those answers wouldn’t have gone over well in my 11^th grade career counselling session. Answering this question with; Doctor, Dentist, Janitor, Recruiter, Salesperson only sets us up to get pissed in the future.  I have realized that I want to “be” more involved in life, but when I was growing up (as most of us probably experienced), I thought you had to answer that question with a title (and falsely assumed that this title would unlock doors to the things I really want to “be”).  That’s where we are wrong.  As I’ve learned, balance is a choice we make every day and it’s no different when you choose what to “be” in life.  The sad part, we don’t teach people real options for what constitutes being something.  I think we are teaching people backwards and we are teaching them that a job is what will define them and is the only option to have what they might want out of life.  We try to say “pick a profession” because it will help give you certain things and although there is some truth to that,  I’m starting to believe that you could choose what you want out of life and then build plans and make life choices that afford you your “be”ing (relaxation, compensation, cultural experiences, etc). 

Spend some time thinking about what you want out of life from the perspective of experiences and then work to build a plan that enables you to achieve those things.  Don’t get hung up on what you do for a living as most of us do, just do whatever it is you do so that you can find the deeper and more powerful aspects of living life and it might help you in the long run.

Fat runner. Oxy-moron or real life scenario?

I dedicate this post to anyone who has consumed ice cream, potato chips, cold pizza (hell, you pick the poison) just before they go to bed.  If you have done this once or twice, you’ll know the voice that echoes in your head as you cram food in your face…it’s ok, eat some more, we’ll run a little extra tomorrow!  Yeah, right. I am a fat runner (first step is admitting it).  I know, it sounds like an oxy-moron, but it’s true.  Although I haven’t run for two weeks (I am running after this article posts); I am running in my 7^th ½ marathon in October, my blood pressure is in a good place and I have a solid collection of medals, but I am 235 pounds.  The weight thing wouldn’t be bad if I was 6’5”, but I am 5’10”, so…yes, I am a fat runner.

A few weeks ago I figured out that balance isn’t something you can find, it’s something that you have to choose.  My previous search for balance had been tailored to managing the “career world” and creating my escape from the corporate hamster wheel (you know the drill…stop the long hours, spend more time with the family, stop checking email at 10pm at night).  I’ve found new ways to make more balanced choices relative to work, so now I am embarking on a new and more challenging quest, the quest to squash the pleasures of late night eating.

I might be in the minority with this weakness, so if this whole topic seems completely foreign to you, please come by my house around 11pm on a random Thursday night and you’ll find me asleep on the couch (this is where the problem starts).  I put my 3 angelic maniacs to bed around9pmand once they go to bed, I go to the couch.  The TV goes on for some mind numbing entertainment and within 20 minutes of my newly found “peace and quiet”, I am out cold.  Phase II of my problem sets in approximately 1 hour after falling asleep.  I stir on the couch, wake up and notice that it’s11pmand I realize that I have to get up at 530am, so I exit the couch and head to bed.  This is decision time.

Once I rub my eyes, stretch a bit and get off the couch, I have a choice.  Go left- through the living room with a clear shot to the stairs and a direct line of sight to the comfort of my king size bed or…go right, through the kitchen and force myself to pass the food corridor of hell.  Who are we kidding?  I go right 7 out of 10 times.  This horrible decision took place, again, last night and as I ate a chunk of chocolate, dipped in peanut butter (my fat guy genes told me that it was totally cool because I needed the protein from the peanut butter and the calories from the chocolate to fuel my muscle healing).  My inner marathon voice shouted, mid-chew, “hey, jackass- why don’t we run once in 9 days before you decide to cram homemade peanut butter cups down our throat at11pm”

The fat guy genes prevailed on Friday night…I ate 3 more pieces of chocolate.

So, I’m off to run this morning and am looking for ways to condition myself to stay out of the kitchen at night, working toward becoming a runner who doesn’t have to run simply to burn off the calories from the mid night food bender that so often plagues me.

Enjoy your weekend and I hope to report in the weeks to come that I have found a way to defeat the late night eating demons and can work toward becoming a “less than fat” runner.

The original Larry Furlow is the %$#*

I am a good father (if I don’t say so myself) and I’ve become a pretty good brother, friend and husband too. When I was growing up, like most kids my age; I loved to run around with friends, play sports, ride bikes, swim at the neighbourhood pool and we always (come summer time) made it home by dinner.

If you haven’t met my Mom, you’d dig this lady.  She is creative, organized, driven and she did a pretty good job of cooking too.  Sorry Mom, it wasn’t the food that I was getting home for on time.  I was getting home on time to take part in a sacred ritual that took place each week day night between6pmand 630pm.  I played a critical part in this “ritual” with another person in my life and it was our show time each night just prior to dinner.  The other person I refer to would walk in the front door (smiling) lay his brief case on the dining room table, he would migrate to the fridge and hammer down a beer, deliver hugs to 4 other people and then “we” (this dude and I) would head up stairs for the nightly ritual of changing clothes, talk about my day, put on cut off jean shorts and a t-shirt and then we would head back down stairs to spend time with those “other 4 people”.

The summers rolled along and those “adventures of changing clothes” slowed to a halt.  I was getting older and spending more time with my friends.  School became really important to me (not the academics, the social aspect…we are talking 6^th, 7^th & 8th grade - come on people).  I made my travel soccer team, the junior high school football team, the basketball team and I even gave a whirl at running track.  Soccer had always been in our family because the dude I referred to in the second paragraph coached all of my teams.  He taught me how to work hard on a field, how to care about winning and how to be a team-mate, so when I tried out for the track team (not really a try out, more of…show up, put on uncomfortable running shoes and listen to the coach), he smiled because he had been a runner while growing up.  My first track meet, of course, he was in the stands watching (he’d been at every other event in my life- that’s how he rolled) and I was fired up.  The starter’s gun went off for the 220- I’m old enough that we ran in yards, not meters and being as lightning fast as I was, I started from lane 8.  Post gun shot, I took off like a bat out of hell and I did what any other slow runner would do, I played the damn angle.  I cut across 7 other lanes of running traffic and worked my way to lane 1 (and the lead) and then got passed by 7 other frustrated runners a few seconds later who knew I had just destroyed the cardinal rule of track and field, but I didn’t care.  For a split second, I was winning that race and my inadvertent cheating only made the dude in the stands smile.  After the humiliating bus ride back to my junior high school, he was there to offer me a hug and we laughed about how to stay in my own damn lane for the next race (my track career ended after my 8^th grade season…shocker, I know).

As high school came into swing, he helped host parties, pick me up from friend’s pools (wearing very loud plaid pants and creating a bit of a drama fest, but everyone of my friends had to talk to the dude in the pastel pants).  This man cried with me when I lost a friend to a heart attack our senior year of high school and he supported me when most people wouldn’t have.  Here is a highlight list from high school; broken window at the basketball game, egging houses, fights at baseball fields and my all time favourite; “Mr. Furlow, there’s a man on the phone who says he has Travis… “Who is he Aaron?”  “Uh, he’s a police officer”… “Jesus Christ, alright…go back to having your “sleep over” Aaron, I’ll get him.”  Yep, we had some fun in high school (and by support me, I mean “ground me”, but he never beat me, which was a positive, right?

On to marriage and grown up life.  He told me to always put my wife first, as he had with my mother.  He supported me through my career decisions and it makes him proud of his boys to talk about career growth and life goals over 2000 calorie breakfasts on the deck in northernMichigan.  His advice has generally been rejected (right out of the gate), but then it marinates for a while and then I realize how good the advice has been and I put it to work (generally solving the original problem).  Through that frustrating process he could have stopped offering advice, but he didn’t…and he let me mature to a point where I now offer that same advice (maybe not with as much patience) to my children.

I am a good father, because he is.  I am a good husband, because he is.  I am a good son, friend, and contributor to our community, because he is.

In short; I wouldn’t be me, without him.

Happy Father’s Day Dad!

I finally found it...

This is my last blog post on "finding balance" and although I haven't decided if I'm going to shut down the entire blog, www.stopthechase.wordpress.com , or keep writing on the blog site with more random articles, let me share what took place this morning that sparked my decision. I have been blogging for almost three years and as you've heard in other posts, the genesis of my writing hobby was an "industry blog" in 2008 while I was managing a start-up Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) division for a privately held staffing company inMichigan.  Blogging had become hyper popular as a means to connect with people through experiential writing, so my team assumed that these sales prospects would read about the great service offerings our firm designed and provided and they'd be dying to do business with us and from these articles we'd sell hundreds of RPO relationships, make millions of dollars and I'd retire before 50.  That was the plan and yes, I fell a "wee bit short" of executing on said plan.

Anyway- my original blog pages (furlowsopinion.wordpress.com & fearlessleadership.wordpress.com) focused on illuminating the lives of business professionals around our industry and after a dozen articles I realized that I had slowly transitioned my writing style from industry blogger to a wannabe Dr. Phil who spent his time airing the challenges and concerns of navigating life.  Although airing my personal challenges was and continues to be therapeutic, it also made a number of my friends and family whisper behind closed doors and I'm sure it had prospective clients reading through and thinking, "he seems to really understand talent acquisition strategies and I like his perspective on what makes for solid client delivery, but wow, he needs to lie on a couch somewhere and work out his issues".

Flash forward a few years and my writing continues to grow.  As I've mentioned before, I have fallen in love with the process of writing and having been a fairly creative kid, it made sense that I would enjoy writing and creating, but as so many of us have done, I enabled the standard bullshit of life (peer pressure, popularity and a few other things) to step in the way of pursuing any of these dreams.  This is where I would typically insert something about my deep insecurities and how I was too afraid to be “me” and how I let society force my hand in becoming an un-opinionated fair weather soul for most of my early years who was "liked" by most, but was unable to find his true calling.  See, my writing has done some really solid work on my psyche, hasn't it?  Continuing on...the good news is my writing and some coaching has helped me embrace more of who I am and who I want to be as a person.  I might not "love" to work, but I do enjoy working toward being "good" at everything I do.  I enjoy the learning and effort it takes to pick up new concepts and I'll generally work hard enough to get to the point of comfortable knowledge and then I get bored and look for something else to learn (which starts the process all over again).  I used to hate this trait, but now I love it because it's fuelled a fire to continue pushing and learning.  I also like a bit of chaos/adrenalin in life and working in the RPO space had afforded me that fix too, but now as I embarked on becoming more authentic and have spent time and energy on activities like meditation, executive coaching and very honest reflection, which helped motivate me to focus on "finding" balance.  The first step was to leave an organization I had been with for 4 years and get back into a more mature and corporate professional role, knowing it would enable me to stay focused on one area of my business and keep my life pointed in the right direction.  The second step was to create the new blog site and begin writing, so I created stopthechase.wordpress.com and began writing about my search for balance and a number of other Dalai Lama’esque behaviors.

I thought everything was lining up appropriately and my 2010 career change completely backfired.  It became an overwhelming role and proved to be a test of how much I really wanted to find the elusive life balance.  As my career responsibilities quickly grew and the scope of my job changed I spent more time expecting that balance could be found if I kept looking for it.  I looked every freaking spot a person could...under the table (nope, not there), in the backyard (nope, not there either) at the local bar, golf course, vacation spot, long weekend with the family and my children's events (and nope- none of those places helped me find the balance I searched for).  Everywhere I expected to "find" balance, I’d come up empty and would pout back to working 70 hours per week.   This career backfire had me busy enough that I stopped writing, which felt logical at the time, but deep down I was pissed off.

I stuck out this career move for a year, but it got to a point where I decided to make some bold changes in early 2011 and quit my job.  I decided to make more balanced choices like…normal work hours, productive time management, regular attendance at family events, parties with friends, running more regularly and all of it felt pretty good.  My new career started in March of 2011 and the first two months were a decompression of sorts, so as I drove into work this morning (Monday, June 13) I noticed that I felt very refreshed (more so than I've been in years) and I had just come off a busy weekend where we spent time with almost everyone we know; my wife, my kids, my parents, in-laws, brother, sister-in-law, nieces and the list goes on.  I shouldn't feel refreshed I kept telling myself.  Life tells me that I should be tired, irritated about not having a longer weekend and pissed about going into a job that I'll have to hold for another 36 years -according to my financial planner.

Ironically, I wasn't pissed.  That's when it sunk in.  I reflected back over the last 4 months of my new role and the choices I've been making.  There have been plenty of scenarios that could have prohibited me from achieving balance and I haven't bowed down to any of them so far (as I have done from 1995-2010).  The new structure of my job, the early pressure of performing, the overloading feeling of our family schedule, the need for social interaction with friends could have all derailed my balance, but they haven’t.  Why?  Because I chose everything that I'm experiencing now.  Good, bad or indifferent!  For the first time I've firmly wrapped my arms around something regarding finding balance.  Finding balance is an oxy-moron!  Choosing balance is the only way to obtain it.  Choosing balance is a tough set of repeated behaviors that run against the grain of our traditional societal norms.  Yes, my emails are still ploughing in, but after 5pm they'll have to wait until 730am the following morning and yes, I still work in a misunderstood industry, but I'm choosing to find the beauty in putting people to work for a living, which has helped me to be more honest and compassionate with the people I come in contact with daily.  I am communicating more clearly with everyone and have begun to realize that making these so called "balanced choices" is leaving more time in my day and I'm all around a more productive person because of them.

Think about all of the scenarios we experience daily and how many of them require personal choices.  The smile or frown on your face is a choice, the run you might take is a choice, the bad mood you might want to stay in is a choice and the way you treat people is a choice.  There isn't anything overly complicated about it; in fact, it is a pretty easy concept to live by.  If you want balance, peace and happiness, then choose it.  I know it sounds cliché, but it is true and it's why my blog content needs to change.  I'm not looking for or trying to find balance…for the first time in my professional life, I’ve chosen it and I'll continue to do so regardless of where I work or what I do for a living. 

More to come in the future and I wish you all well.

Growing Up or Living Life...you choose!

I graduated from high school in 1991, so yes- this is the month (two decades ago) that I graduated from Dearborn High and a group of my friends & classmates began the last summer of work free, party heavy and sleep-in summer vacation.  The weather was about the same 20 years ago (hot and humid), I was still pretty insecure, I felt too fat to walk around in a bathing suit (but weighed 30 pounds less than I do today) and I loved being around friends, playing sports, drinking beer and working out religiously.  It was about this time in my life that I heard more than my fair share of…it’s time to grow up and it’s time to get serious, which I smile about now.  

A ton has changed in 20 years and my perspective on life has completely changed.  Some might say I have grown up, but I know I have a long way to go in that regard and candidly, am starting to feel that growing up is code word for act boring, stop living life and succumb to the rat race that so many others have jumped on to.  How has my perspective on life changed?  Well, I am married and have three children, which has been a bit of a “game changer”.  Additionally, and self admitted- I like cutting the grass and watering the lawn almost as much as I enjoy going out (sad, but true).  And finally, as my wife and I run around screaming at kids to shut doors, turn off lights, pick up cloths and a host of other annoying grown up behaviors that were bestowed on us by the “parent fairy” I guess we have, in fact, grown up and now it’s my job to help my kids grow up too.

As I thought about “growing up” and what it means in our society, I immediately thought about my great grandmother and what a cool lady she was.  She lived in a small town in northwesternMichiganand was married to a man who worked theGreatLake’s freighters.  She had a beautiful old home that is still in the family and as a child I would have bet plenty of money that their home was a 10,000 square foot mansion.  As I got older, I realized that she raised her family in a tight, modest home with creaky floors, warped walls and a well to provide water to the home (not really a home that would have made it on MTV’s Cribs), but as a kid, I loved it.  Funny too, I look back and there wasn’t a whole lot of growing up from my great grandmother's clan.  They loved to party when we would visit for the summer and proof of this affinity for youthful behavior would be the clock that hung in the kitchen and read, “no drinking before 5” and all the numbers on the clock were 5’s.

I remember Grandma Louise telling me that she walked by the mirror and was shocked by the old woman’s reflection because she never felt older than 16 or 17.  It was as if her soul had been frozen in time and her body decided to pick up the toll for the years of hard work, raising a family and yes, some boozing and smoking.  My great grandmother died in her sleep (years ago) at 87, which isn’t a bad way to go by most accounts.  And as I reflect on my life, I’d love to think that she had the whole idea of “living life” figured out.

I know that most of us have more responsibility as we age, but we do get to choose if we want to feel 16 or 17 or if we want to “feel and act” our current age. 

I still have a long way to go until 87, but at 38 I’m shocked by how many of us believe growing up means discontinuing a youthful spirit.  We will shock ourselves in the mirror someday and I hope we’ll choose to feel 16 or 17 too, as my great grandmother did.  Feeling young, acting young and embracing what we had years ago isn’t immature, it’s a great way to keep life in perspective.  Exercise more, power down a late night breakfast on occasion and yes, I’ll promise to not walk around in a bathing suit (until this running thing really irons out some of the mess my beer drinking and late night breakfast eating has created over the last twenty years), but you get the point.  Growing up doesn’t have to mean stop living and I’m going to make sure that I stop telling my kids to “grow up” and will begin telling them to “live life”.  They’ll grow up on their own terms and hopefully they too will feel youthful for years to come.

Impulse decisions...gone wild!

Try to find balance in this story.  We had dinner last night with some friends at a sushi joint near our house.  It was a casual dinner with good food and some good discussion.  I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to drink when we first arrived, so I sipped some ice water and tried to determine if I wanted to fight a hang over on Sunday morning or would I prefer something to “sip” through the evening that would prevent my attendance at 2 soccer games and a hockey game on Sunday from being accompanied by that semi dizzy, pounding headache that generally follows my inability to embrace the concept of moderation. Now, if we back up a bit, our Saturday started kind off on a positive note.  Deena, my wife, had plans to go on a “home tour” with her mom, so I took our three kids to our oldest son’s soccer game and then I did what any brave father would do- I took the kids out to lunch, followed by a run to the grocery store and then we returned home, so the kids could attack the neighborhood on their bikes and I could spend some time cleaning up the lawn (it was the first time in 7 or 8 days that Michigan had been exposed to the sunshine, so I was taking advantage of it).

Alright, back to my drink order at dinner.  I decided to go with a glass of scotch (on the rocks, of course) and asked our waitress if they carried a certain brand that I like to drink- Oban.  The waitress confirmed they had my bottle behind the bar and my first glass went down a little easier than it probably should have, so in true form, I had to have another (if you haven’t seen the movie Anchorman- starring Will Ferrell- this is where we would insert a voice overlay of Ron Burgundy singing- scotchy, scotch, scotch…I love scotch!)  Glass number 2 was iced and ready for consumption.

I digress again.  As I finished our yard work earlier in the day I thought I would take my daughter to the park to play and as I watched my kids run around like maniacs I played around on my phone and decided to post on Facebook that we were going out on Saturday night to which I received a response from our friends that they were looking forward to dinner and what a great night it would be for a bonfire.  I agreed, but I don’t own a fire pit, so another sweet impulse hit me…I had to go buy one!  My wife, who isn’t a big fan of impulse decisions, made it home from her home tour and was greeted with; “Hi honey, welcome home, I’m off to buy a fire pit”, which sent her into a bit of a tail spin.  Per usual, we argued about the level of impulsivity, but we agreed it would be nice to have, so off I went (at5pm-dinner reservations at 630pm- to buy this thing).  I made it home with “the pit” just before6pm, got showered and was off to dinner.

Okay, back to glass of scotch number two.  I finished my second glass and the bill comes to the table as we were ready to head back to our house, take part in the minor assembly required of my new pit and enjoy a beer or two on the deck, but remember…we are in Michigan, so of course, it started to rain (now my impulse purchase will remain in my trunk, which really made my wife happy).  As I look at our bill, to pile on the irritation, I have to laugh that I kind of, sort of, forgot to ask the waitress what year of my brand of scotch they carried (oh yeah, it was clearly a couple years “older” than the bottle I would typically drink), so thankfully I only had 2- $20.00 glasses of scotch, which added some sweet fuel to the fire and made my wife want to throw me into a head lock and choke me.

In conclusion…my wife is a saint and although we ended up laughing about the evening as we typically do, PLEASE don’t ask Deena about how much we should tip a waitress (after a groupon, dividing a bill into two parts and ensuring that a fair percentage is applied to the bill).  Note to self…don’t attempt to calculate this complicated dinner arrangement while under the influence of over priced scotch.  Thanks for catching my scotch based math error- teacher friends!

Out of balance...

You can balance a lot of things in life.  You can balance your time, you can balance your partying, you can balance your work life and you can balance your emotions, but one thing I don’t think you should balance is the amount of time you put into relationships with the people around you. The people around you deserve more than “balance”.  The people around you deserve the most beautiful imbalance imaginable; they deserve so much of your attention that it is obnoxiously out of whack.  It should be lop sided, the amount of support, coaching, caring, loving, learning and listening that we offer to these people who help round out our lives.

In today’s world of balancing work and home (and everything in between) life begins to meld together, doesn’t it?  We have mobile devices that keep us in regular touch with most of the people close to us (work and home), we drive past thousands of people daily and we work with hundreds, if not thousands, of people, which gives us ample opportunity to offer the support I mentioned above, but I know that I haven’t always taken advantage of those opportunities.  I know there are people who I have come in contact with and I wasn’t my best self, which is part of being human I guess, but when I heard from a friend today, it quickly reminded me how easy it can be to forget about taking care of the people around us.

These people in our lives might be co-workers, your immediate family, your neighbors or the stranger on the street, so imagine how crazy it would be if we took this article so literally that we pushed ourselves to care about everyone we came into contact with throughout out lives.  Let’s take work as an example.  All of us have tough decisions to make with respect to work, don’t we?  In today’s world, work requires a lot of interaction with people and some of us even get paid to coach, lead and manage other people, so we probably have double the exposure.  Work is requiring more hours than we might want, it has more stress than we might have signed up for and from time to time, work is plain irritating.  That said, imagine if our “work place” was filled with people whose sole purpose was to treat you with respect, dignity, compassion and humility.  What if when you weren’t performing well, they had the common courtesy of telling you that you weren’t performing and suggesting some ways for you to begin performing to the standards they may have set because they care too much to let you suffer or to let you put the others around you in harm’s way?

Interesting concept, huh?  Remember, all of us are going to die some day and from what I’ve been told by those who are much older than I am, you should be enjoying things in life that help to create a legacy.  Laughing, coaching, loving, guiding, volunteering, and aiding are all verbs that describe something a person would do for another person and it’s my belief that those are the actions that create a legacy.

I learned a valuable lesson today through a friend’s challenge.  You never know when that “thing” called a job might come to a close or those people who you interact with on a daily basis might forget about taking care of people first.  I am going to try and be more thankful for the people around me and even if the people around us aren’t behaving the way we might have hoped for, please continue to treat them with the dignity, respect, compassion and humility that I mentioned earlier in this article.  If someone needs help, offer it to them.  If someone needs to move on, coach them to do so.  If someone needs to vent, listen to them.  Overall, work to be a servant to the people around you.  It will make you a better family person, better employer, better employee and in general, a happier human being.