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.

Where did the random acts of kindness go?

I had my family over last night to celebrate Mother’s Day and my Father’s 64^th birthday (yes, Dad, I’m outing your “maturity”).  We had a great night, Seth (my youngest brother), his wife and their two daughters came by, so the kids were able to destroy the basement, run outside (thank God for spring like weather) and the adults had the interesting experience of sitting still and conversing without having to chase, yell, scream or herd our children, so overall it was a good night. As the discussions progressed my brother asked me whatever happened to the “foundation” I was planning to start a few years ago.  At one point in 2009 I started to make a push for other people to generate one random act of kindness daily and my exercise led me to a number of groups/websites where acts of kindness was the focal point, so I backed off a bit and slowly let the daily efforts of doing random, kind things slip.  The concept of being kind isn’t a new one, but seeing that I have been consistently able to witness reactions on the faces of homeless people who I might hand a $10 dollar bill to or the look on the face of the cashier at a Dairy Queen when I ask him or her what the cost of the order is for the family behind us in the drive through (because I’m going to pay for their ice cream) or the smile when you hold a door for someone, those are priceless looks.

My idea to create a foundation spun from a year of doing daily acts of kindness and I considered starting a non-profit group that would travel to schools (with a large board game I was planning to build) and show K-5^th graders the effects of kind behavior.  The board was going to be a 10’x10’ roll up mat that had a maze printed on it (similar to the game, Life) and the pieces of the board would be the children in the class.  As two students played the game, their class mates would gather around the board (in two teams; each supporting a member on the board) and the surrounding team members would take turns rolling an oversized fuzzy die, so the kid standing on the board would know how many spots to progress through the maze.  Each spot they landed on would have a “social situation” that forced the discussion around how to be kind.  As an example, one spot might read; “Sally just moved into your school and isn’t sitting next to anyone at lunch”, what could you do that would be considered kind?  My team would help facilitate (with the teacher) some solutions that would foster kindness and then we would talk through how this makes everyone feel and the positive ripple effect that could be created with their new student.

I have three children, so I understand that most kids are honest and inherently kind and if they are not, I believe they can be shown, supported and taught how much more powerful it is to be kind.  In reality, it’s the “growing up” piece and social pressures that they’ll face in the years to come that will turn them inward, drive them to want to “fit in” and pull them away from their true self.  So, if we make it “cool” to talk about these behaviors then as they get older, they’ll have the memory of these games and continue to think about ways to be kind as they grow and mature.  It’s a stretch, but what the hell, right?

Back to the question my brother asked me.  What ever happened to that idea?  The answer; nothing!  Life tends to get in the way, doesn’t it?  My game was going to be a way to introduce kindness to the youngest demographic I could think would comprehend it and then I would work to build an exercise to work with high schools in a different, more “motivational speaking” way and then my final phase of this non-profit would be the book that shows adults the damage that can occur when your relationships, financial health, spiritual health, and professional life are fueled by the inauthentic behaviors of being rude, greedy, selfish, scared, etc.

What would give me the credibility to do that, well, I’ve lived it.  I was pulled away from gentle compassion in order to “fit in” to “not rock the boat” to “spend” so people think your successful and I’m almost out of that insanity and I would like to prevent young people from going that route and those a bit older to learn that there are ways to break the cycles that might be hurting them.  Once I have finalized the last of my commitments to getting more balanced, maybe it will be time to invest some money in a concept that I let fall to the side.

As cheesy as it might sound; how much easier would this world be to navigate through if we focused efforts on educating a generation of people who believed it was OK to be kind, not weak to be kind and we taught them how to treat others the same way?  We could teach them to cherish learning and teach them to create, innovate and think in ways that might not get used today.  Wouldn’t these efforts help us to become a more innovative society, a more collaborative one and wouldn’t the impact touch the people who are slated to run this country in 20 or 30 years, making them do so in a way that fosters a very positive energy, in personal and business life? 

Seth- thanks for your question.  Nothing much has happened with that foundation, but you have sparked some thought around why it hasn’t and I can tell you that I’ll be back to doing my 1 random act of kindness per day (starting today) and looking for ways to make an impact, when I can.

I'm being selfish, I get it!

I met with my coach today and we had a discussion about the search for life balance and how the various aspects of life all play into the balancing act.  As we started our session I refreshed her on the balance I am starting to feel with my work life and how I have found a professional venue to practically apply the behaviors that lead toward a more balanced approach to life.  My new behaviors (honesty, direct communication, humility, etc.) applied at my new place of work have me enjoying professional life and in turn, has me more engaged at home.  I have more time to spend with the kids, time to be the one to drop them off at practices and I’m not letting my new role demand that I have my phone buried against the side of my head while I pretended to be the involved parent. All of this sounds great, right?  Here is my problem.  Now that I have this new found work balance, can someone please explain why the hell I feel so uncomfortable?  I’ve been freaking out for the last couple of weeks because I have talked, written, questioned and angled to get this work balance and I’m still edgy.  I posed this issue to my coach and then shared a bigger concern; my introspective guess as to why I feel edgy.  My newly found work balance has enabled me to spend more time at home, yes, but that time is with 3 “active” children who aren’t all that peaceful to be around and I don’t love the noise, shouting, running, driving, yelling, cleaning, jumping and the laundry list of other kid-like behaviors that my new found work balance has offered me a ring side seat for.  In short, it is much easier to work 12 hour days and come home to a quiet house and that realization is making me feel pretty freaking selfish.  My coach shared that this is all normal; a decompression of sorts and she continues to reinforce the need for honesty and open communication during this time because it will allow me work on balancing my home life, as I have begun to balance work.

I know it’s cliché to say that life is multi-dimensional and that I’m trying to find myself within those dimensions, but it seems to be true.  I’m more work balanced, agreed, but now I feel more chaotic at home, so my “life balance” quest is going to focus on a more holistic approach.  I’ve noticed that I have been attempting to balance 1 element of my life at a time (work or home or personal) and the other areas get neglected, which makes my entire life feel just as chaotic as it did prior to my regular search for balance.  I am going to begin applying the behaviors I mentioned earlier in this article to each of the areas of my life and we’ll see if that helps. 

As I work to strike balance as an employee, a father, a husband and become a more authentic person, I’ll keep you posted on my progress and if I can find the magic solution to juggling all life throws at us, I will make sure to pass it along.

Chaos...all the cool kids are doing it!

I was “tweeting” today (insert visual of a funny facial expression).  Really, who came up with the technical term “tweet” anyway….ok, back to my article.  I am working to attract additional readers and build a bit of a personal brand, so a friend told me that I should be leveraging Twitter and I listened.  It’s been an interesting Twitter week (thank you to my dear, sweet followers-all 36 of you- I won’t forget you when I hit the big time blog circuit).  Tweeting and "following" has shown me all of the random thoughts, interesting perspectives and creativity that people want to talk about and honestly, I love reading all of it. As I have blogged about recently, one of the reasons I switched companies in March was to have more focus on family and to seek personal balance.  Tonight was one of those less than balanced evenings as I had soccer practice with my oldest and my wife took my other two offspring to the 6-year old’s hockey game, only to meet back at the house, get everyone showered and prepped for the 2^nd hockey game of the weekend (taking place at 730am on Saturday morning- so much for the weekend sleep in).  Truth be told, I was getting a little bored at soccer-at least I’m honest while I search for balance and increased family time.  So in an attempt to combat my boredom I grabbed the I-phone and looked for people to follow on Twitter. I started surfing through the lists of people who might be writing, speaking and coaching on the subject of “life balance” and the results were a bit overwhelming.  Life coaches, authors, speakers, spiritual advisors and a few hundred thousand others popped up.  I began to feel a bit diluted in the whole scheme of becoming a work life balance pioneer, but I kept clicking FOLLOW on the various people who appeared to have unique perspectives on a common topic.

Twitter aside for a minute, type WORK LIFE BALANCE into Google and you’ll get these results: About 4,960,000 results (0.08 seconds), so it is clear that a host of us are seeking some kind of balance.  Isn’t it funny that so many people could be looking for something and none of us seems to find it, ever?  I can find thousands of authors, coaches and speakers who preach about ways to achieve balance and yet, according to a recent article I read in a workforce planning magazine more than 70% of professionals are struggling with balance, engagement with their careers and are down right unhappy.  That’s when it hit me… if so many of us are looking for something and we never find it, maybe we really didn’t want to find it in the first place.  Is it possible that we have grown to like the misery, the drama and the unnatural balance that we live in?  I’ll admit it; I like the misery and drama a little bit.  Hell, it gives us something to talk about at work, during family dinners and it enables us to hide from growing, exploring, divergence of thought and balancing our lives.  In short, fear based and drama based actions and thought are ironically easier to deal with and more widely accepted than the balance we claim to want.

Here are some examples.  For some reason, I, like others, have been terrified to live life the way it was intended.   I’ve worked hard for the last 4 years to try and break my ego maniacal ways, become more financially responsible and to pay more attention to the people in my life that deserve my attention.  Old habits die hard because my ego is still pretty strong.  It doesn’t take much for me to want to revert back to my “old habits” of living a life built around monetary incentives and materialism which creates an unbalanced lifestyle.  Second example; I am driving a used car for the first time in my professional life and although it gets me from A to B and it doesn’t burn $4.00 per gallon at the rate of 15 miles per gallon like the SUV I might want, I still refuse to take people to lunch in that car (for fear they might wonder if I’m doing ok) and I’m thinking about buying a nice new car, so people will think highly of me (coughing sound…shallow…coughing sound).  Again, it is much easier to pay a car payment and live more chaotically than to embrace the comfort of no car payment.  How counter-intuitive is that?  Finally, I make a recent career move that some might call a -step back- and although I did it strategically, I still feel the need to justify that move to everyone I see, so others won’t think that I am a “job hopper” or incapable of keeping a position (even though the job gives me everything I would need to support the “balance” I talk so positively about).

See- I am simply prone to making decisions that support chaos, not balance.  I am realizing that this elusive balance isn’t something that is found, it is already around us and only takes a set of simple choices to engage.  Balance is the way life was intended to be lived, but we’ve grown so comfortable with chaos, that we’ve made the natural appear unattainable.

The positive is I’m recognizing all of this at a point in time where I hope to have years to correct some of these decision patterns and teach my children the more balanced choices in life.

I've made horrible mistakes...have you?

My Aunt Laurie, a 30+ year teacher and avid reader-writer used to tell me that when writing, you need to find your voice.  And…you should hope to find people who are willing to listen to that voice!  My writer’s voice, my opinions and my inspiration for life balance have been growing over time, but finding the audience who connects with my writing is a bit more difficult.  A few days ago an old client emailed me looking for some guidance regarding recruiting strategies for one of his clients.  I happily responded with some available times and we agreed to chat for an hour on Friday morning.  Joe and I worked together in 2007 & 2008.  Joe was the HR executive for an Oklahoma based oil and gas firm and I was leading the recruiting company supporting them.  Although we work for different firms now, we have kept in email contact and trade voicemails occasionally. What I didn’t know until Friday morning was Joe is a regular visitor to my blog site.  Our conversation opened with “Trav- I love your blog”, which took me off guard because he began to comment on my writing frequency and how my topics seem to run in waves.  My ego translated these comments into: “Hey, dude…you are a decent writer, but you are all over the freaking map with topics, get focused, would ya!”  So as I was working to shut off my ego’s filter, I began to digest some constructive coaching when it became clear that Joe wasn’t coaching me, he was genuinely stating that he “connected” to the content on my blog site.  

Most of my friends and family know that I am innately forthcoming with my emotions and that I am working on being very “aware” of my strengths and my weaknesses.  Now Joe, he struck me as different.  Joe, self-admitted, holds onto emotion, keeps them bottled up and ironically, seems to carry the same fears and concerns I have written about.  He told me that the more I wrote about my challenges, fears and issues, the more he read and the more normal he began to feel (what a humbling experience for me).  The reason I was so taken back was the outward appearance that Joe carries.  Here is this man who from the outside looks to be as steady as a person could be.  He is the father of two boys, a husband, has strong career experiences and all the while he was harboring pain and anguish about his place in society, his priorities and his life long struggle with balance. Where I have fought feelings of inadequacy and insecurity for the best part of 38 years, he had been fighting them for 52 years.  Our fears, insecurities and struggle to maintain balance was all the same and it was relieving to both of us, so we continued to share ways we have dealt with and managed our challenges.  It became clear to me that my “audience” didn’t have to be a young father or someone who felt lost in their career.  My audience is probably larger than I thought it was going to be and I began to wonder how many young men, new fathers, old fathers, husbands (both newly weds and those celebrating 50 years of marriage) struggle with these same challenges.  How many of them get up every morning and anguish about going to work, because they would rather stay home with the kids, run the errands, take a step back in their career, down size their bills (but they just can’t find anyone to share these thoughts with)?

I have learned that being open and transparent isn’t the only step.  Once you have opened up, you benefit from taking action that supports the recovery of the areas you may have struggled with.  It was eye opening, humbling and an honor to talk with Joe and to learn from someone who has been working to “stop the chase” and find more balance too.  Admitting that I have faulted in so many areas of life is abnormal to most people, but truth be told, everyone is screwing something up at some point in life and I am just now realizing how much easier it is to adjust your course if you don’t feel alone on the journey.  Honesty and humility enables a person to “let go” of the bullshit that comes along with all of those fears.

After being honest with my parents, my wife, my friends, my coach (the list goes on), we have found ways to adjust the course I was on.  I am less than 12 months away from being “bad debt free”, I have made adjustments to my career (so it works around my schedule and not the other way around) and my relationship with my wife and children is based on honesty and humility, which doesn’t make being a parent or a husband easier, just more genuine.

As I have been taught, it is unrealistic to think we won’t continue to make mistakes.  We will continue to be fearful (we’re human), we will continue to make poor decisions, but having the nerve to be open and transparent about how we are feeling enables us to locate others who are going through the same struggles and you’ll be surprised as to how many people are trying to work through these challenges alone.

Remember- there is safety in numbers!

Yep...I quit!

I titled my blog Stop the Chase because the title helps remind me to stay active (in thought and action) around the topic of finding balance in life.  So here I sit, as so many of us do, and dream about pursuing writing for a living, dream about being a 4-hour marathoner, aspire to be a cub-scout leader for my boys, dream about coaching my kids’ teams and I even have interest in helping our community through volunteer work.  Does this sound familiar to you?  Do you dream like this?  If you don’t, have you forgotten about the dreams you might have had at one point in your life? For 16 years I have been putting people to work for a living.  In various stages of my career I have either been a recruiter (someone who is paid to find people or respond to employment applications and determine whether or not these professionals might add value to the company they are applying to), a recruiting manager (someone who helps coach people who were doing the former), a director (someone who tells someone how to coach people who do the former) and I even had a stint as a vice president of recruiting (a person who gets so far away from recruiting they probably shouldn’t tell ANYONE what or how to do), so after a 4 year run as the director/vp type, I took a role with a Fortune 500 company (in early 2010) to “get back into big corporate” and it only took 365 days for me to realize that the higher I climb the farther away from my life goals I seem to get.  I write about and aspire to find balance and this newly found role was doing just the opposite.  I was actually less and less balanced with a need for long hours, the hunt for new clients and the management of a team that worked in an industry that is facing large challenges, so I did what I felt to be necessary to maintain balance…I quit!

Yep…I quit and it felt great.  It felt great for a couple reasons. First, I found an opportunity to go back into a recruiting role with one of my former employers, PricewaterhouseCoopers (talking, coaching, guiding and counseling people who are interested in coming to work for one company- instead of my previous decade’s worth of work supporting multiple organizations as a consultant). Second, I sought this opportunity out for the balance it could offer (after the realization of my personal and professional targets thanks in part to significant life coaching from my personal coach, Kim Knapp).  And finally, this new role will provide me the opportunity to do some of the “family” activities I mentioned in the first paragraph of this article, which has me very excited.

I know that it has become very popular to talk about finding balance (but too few actually do it) and it is less than popular to talk about personal or professional dreams (ironic that so many probably dream, but our lack of balance disables us from finding the time to talk about those dreams or execute on them), so I am taking it upon myself to try and narrow my list of dreams and begin seeing them through. 

Here are some areas that I am going to work on:

1. Be home more and have a smile on my face- I’d like to validate my belief that people can work from 830am-5pm, be productive while working and be engaging with their families in the evening.

2. Focus on exercise- I am a runner, but sometimes for the wrong reasons, so instead of focusing on runs to achieve “status” like a marathon completion or a personal best in a half-marathon, I’m going to run each morning, so I have the energy to support #1.

3. Write more consistently- I enjoy writing and someday would like to write for the purpose of inspiring action in others. The more I write, the better I’ll get (let’s hope) and the closer I will come to the realization of writing and speaking for a living.

4. Be more “present” with my wife and children- My wife and I are both active and both very supportive parents, but I am not always present for my family activities, as my mind wanders about work, life, etc. 

As I see it, if people can focus on a narrowed list of goals, dreams or personal targets (as I am attempting to focus on the four areas mentioned above) then their behaviors should ripple out, in a positive way, to the other aspects of their lives and help to afford the personal balance and professional freedom they may be searching for.  As my coach likes to say; BE, DO and then HAVE (“be” something you aspire to be, “do” the actions that are necessary to accomplish and “have” the results that you have been pushing for).

Another chapter of my journey begins on Monday and I’ll look forward to sharing more of it with all of you as the months roll by.

I want duffel bags for Christmas...

I want duffel bags for Christmas… I am sure most of you have seen the movie A Christmas Story, but if  you haven’t, please know that it is a cult classic about a young boy and his “journey” through the Christmas season and his quest for a single gift; the red rider bee-bee gun (you’ll shoot your eye out…).

The movie is set in the 1950’s and chronicles this young man’s strategy plan for ensuring Santa Claus brings him the gift he feels he needs and deserves.  In a critical scene, the main character, Ralphie, visits Santa and instead of articulating what he wants, he panics and forgets to ask for the toy that he has longed for.  His botched attempt quickly ends his visit on Santa’s knee and an “elf” grabs Ralphie, pulls him from the all mighty “knee” and sends him down a slide (surely ending his dream of receiving this toy).  But in a display of pure passion and perseverance, Ralphie musters the fight to climb back up the slide and makes his final request to Santa; successfully solidifying that he will receive the toy of choice!  How great was it being a “kid” at Christmas?

I want duffel bags for Christmas…

Flash forward to 2010 and things are bit different, aren’t they?  For those of us who are adults- we don’t sit on Santa’s knee and ask for the things we believe we want or need, in fact,  "we" get the requests now and "we" spend most of our time ensuring that the little ones in our lives get those requests, right?  Well I had an interesting experience and an even more interesting request this week and I wanted to share it with you.

I want duffel bags for Christmas…

I have a good friend who has been serving our country for 16 years.  He was a graduate of West Point and could have served his required 4 years (post-graduation) and moved on to a high paying job somewhere in the U.S., but instead he decided to continue serving.  This man has fought in Iraq and now he fights in Afghanistan.  This man has 4 beautiful children and an angel for a wife and as he is approaching another full year and a half away from his family, he reached out and made a request that I found humbling.  This friend of mine emailed me in search of duffel bags for Christmas.  Yes, duffel bags.  I’m sure all of our troops, at some point, wish for their friends, family and the comforts of “home”, but on this Christmas, a good friend of mine wants duffel bags?

I want duffel bags for Christmas…

The duffle bags he requested are sitting in Dearborn, Michigan and they are full of used fire-fighting equipment.  My friend’s battalion is partnered with an Afghan Army Fire Fighting Section and as you can imagine, this Afghani group doesn’t have the bunker gear or some of the necessities to do the job they are commissioned to do.  My friend is a Major in the Army and he has a reservist in his battalion who is from Dearborn, Michigan (which is where I’m from as well as my friend who made the request).  The Dearborn Fire Department has donated these 12 duffle bags of equipment and my friend could use some help in finding a group to help pay for the shipping to get these bags to Afghanistan.  Of all the things someone could wish for on Christmas my friend (and his troops) are wishing for something incredibly self-less and that put a whole bunch of things into perspective.  I don’t have all of the details of the cost or the logistics of the shipping yet, but I am going to get that information soon and will continue to help get that gear shipped to Afghanistan. If you would be willing to help, I know it would be appreciated.

I want duffel bags for Christmas…

I have been running around this season and at times, whined about the work load that I’m balancing (while others are off), attempting to make the holiday parties, stressing about the gifts that I’m giving and then it happened; this request for duffel bags.  Thanks Matt, your request has helped me realize how blessed I am to have people like you in my life and I will continue to do what I can to help with this project.  I hope if anyone else reading this has an idea about organizations, businesses or individuals who might be able to help contribute to shipping this equipment, please post to this article and I’ll find a way to connect with you.

What did you wish for this year?  I bet it wasn’t duffel bags!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!

Are you thankful?

[thangk-fuh l]   –adjective

feeling or expressing gratitude; appreciative.

I spend a fair amount of time contemplating life as well as the consequences of my actions.  A few years ago I realized that my thoughts had a very negative tone.  Most people wouldn’t have guessed this because of my innate ability to keep a relatively happy exterior, but the truth is; my own harsh personal criticisms (which I’m sure we are all guilty of) and the doubt and  guilt over bad decisions really didn’t add value to my life, in fact, it did the opposite.  All of this contemplation and internal reflection on my missteps fueled my personal insecurities, which led to an ego issue (I had to over compensate with an external “everything is great” appearance) and then this manifested itself into an ever-present level of internal frustration which I have affectionately pushed out on those closest to me; my family.

So why do I share all of this?  I share this with you because I’ve worked very hard for 2 years to realize that the internal punishment some people may put themselves through is worthless.  Yes, life can suck from time to time and yes, work might be a pain in the ass and yes, the kids may have a really busy schedule, but I realize that the more I focus on the negative, the more negative I experience.  My focus (as of late) has been to appreciate and accept what life might throw at me.  In short, I’m learning to be thankful again, which is something that is easy to forget with the pace most of our lives take.

I am thankful that I have been surrounded by friends and family who have helped me through some of these challenges in life.  I am thankful that I have been able to recognize that these “challenges” are actually pretty common and we can get through most of what life throws at us.  I am thankful that I have been able to work at shelving my ego (for the most part) and work on sharing some of my issues so that others might identify with these challenges and learn that they aren’t alone in what can feel like a real battle some days.

I’m thankful for the opportunities that have been presented to me (personally and professionally) and even though I might not always act appreciative, I am learning to recognize how special each of these opportunities has been.  For each “check” you could put in the thankful column there may be one that you could put in the “could have done without that column”, so do yourself a favor today and put those frustrating areas of life away.  Clear the negativity and reflect a bit on what it really means to be thankful.

Don’t forget to keep your reflection simple too.  Focus on the areas that we tend to take for granted.  The furnace that keeps your house warm, the roof over your head, the food at your table, the company of the friends and family you might see this weekend and the air you breathe.

I think we can all find something to be thankful for!

Happy Thanksgiving!

$90 million goals and dreams...

Most of us probably read about the winners of the lottery that netted two Michigan men $266 million dollars.  Not bad pay days, even after dividing the $266 million into two, $133 million pay checks.  Now we all know that the government gets their chunk, so reduce that $133 million to, let’s say, $90 million and then you start thinking about what to do with all of your money…that’s when the interesting discussion starts. Imagine if you had that money, all $90 million dollars of it (earning $1.8 million per year in interest with a 2% savings account- I’d bet the bank would give you two toasters for opening that account).  Would you continue the lifestyle or the career that you have today (assuming all that scratch was already in the bank)?  I listen to people who chat about lottery winnings and they use the topic as a catalyst for sharing dreams, goals, and aspirations as it relates to all of the things they would like to do in life, but might not have the opportunity to do for various reasons.  Some people talk about setting their kids up for life and the pressure that would relieve.  Some talk about cars and vacation homes.  Some talk about starting businesses and some talk about helicopters picking them up for their morning ride around town (o.k. - I thought it would be cool, just once, to drop my kids off at school from our helicopter, but I know it’s not practical).

I think we’d all be lying if we hadn’t been part of that game a number of times with a number of different people and what I find so intriguing are the number of dreams people have that never get pursued.

My son’s hockey coach approached me the other day and inquired about my writing.  He noticed one of my blog titles on my personal email signature and asked “what the writing was all about”.  I shared with him that I used to write an industry blog for my last employer and that I had aspirations of writing and speaking for a living.  After giving him my quick response, I dove back down to sea level and resumed my routine of answering emails on my blackberry as the kids skated around the rink.

Cliff grabbed my attention again and asked, “Why don’t you write and speak then” as if it were so simple and illogical that someone who wants something wouldn’t go get it and that’s when it hit me…

Most of our goals, targets and dreams that get outlined when playing the “what would I do if I won a BAJILLION dollars” game might be more achievable than we think.  I know this because I am a man who has run a marathon, but is not built like a marathoner.  I am the son of a woman who wanted to live through cancer and did and I am the brother of a man who went from renting moonwalks for a living at age 22 to becoming the Chief Operating Officer of an incredibly profitable entertainment business by age 34, so I guess most things are closer to our reach than we may give credit.

Thanks Cliff.  I appreciate your honest and logical question.  I am writing, maybe not getting paid to do it yet, but enjoying every minute of the writing I do. If I stay persistent enough and someday complete that book or have an article published, I’ll make sure to remember that it was your question that helped keep me on track with my personal dreams and vision.  To the rest of you, if you happen to be reading this and think about running, or teaching, or retiring, or changing careers, or any other myriad of “lotto list goals”, choose one, make up a concrete plan of steps to take which will get you closer to your goal and begin pursuing.  You’ll surprise yourself, I promise that.

Dad, what's an "all-star"?

Dad, what’s an “all-star”? This was the question posed to me last night by my 8 year old son.  He overheard my wife and me talking about our 6 year old and the upcoming City Soccer Club U6 all-star game.  It wasn’t the question that tripped me up; it was the look in his eyes when he asked it.

My oldest son is an amazing boy; he has the vocabulary of a 15 year old, has been reading on his own for 3 years, he can throw a ball with the best of them, mathematics comes as natural to him as breathing and he has a gentle soul; one that naturally has him be kind, gentle and supportive to those around him, so when he sheepishly asked me about being an all-star, I knew I had done something wrong because from his perspective, all of his amazing abilities appeared to fade away.  His eyes welled up a bit and he said “you want me to be an all-star, right Dad?” which was code for; “I haven’t done a good enough job for you, right?”

Dad, what’s an “all-star”?

I have a good friend and life coach who recently shared her thoughts on raising children and she told me that she believes nothing to be more arrogant than the act of setting an expectation for a child.  When she shared her opinion I argued it, naturally, because I had been a believer of expectation setting and more importantly, expectation achievement.  Her belief system is so different from mine and as I have had time to digest it, it’s beginning to make more sense to me.  As a parent, we should be here for one primary reason; to love our children, unconditionally.  Too often we expect our kids to exceed what we might have accomplished in life or we expect them to follow in our path, which is inherently arrogant, isn’t it?  Instead of expectations couldn’t we simply offer love and guidance and accept that their path in life is just that; their path.  Our role becomes that of inserting a solid moral compass and enabling our children to become productive adults by showing the respect they deserve while experiencing life. Whether we believe it or not; our kids are going to follow their own path and as a parent, like me, we should work to recognize that, right? 

Dad, what’s an “all-star”?

The look of vulnerability and disappointment being shown was enough to break my heart.  As a parent, I believe these are opportunities that afford us time to support and show love, so I did.  Instead of an answer on what is an all-star, I shared my belief regarding effort and its role in life.  I shared my personal belief that not every boy or girl will be an “all-star” on the field and not all great teams are made up of “all-stars”, either.  We talked about the effort needed in school and at home and I shared that as long as he knew in his heart that he had given an effort that was as strong as he could muster then he’d have nothing to ever be disappointed about.  I finished my little speech and gave him a hug and kiss and he looked up at me and said, “Dad…I think I can work a little harder and do a little more to help my soccer team.”  What a comment!  After all of this talk about what makes an individual “all-star” my son equated the effort we talked about and is looking to apply it to helping others, not himself.

Dad, what’s an “all-star”?

You are kiddo…you are.

I could use some advice...

As a father of three; two boys (8 & 6) and a daughter (3), you can imagine that life can get a little crazy.  My wife and I both work full time, which in 2010 is typically defined as 55 hours per week, right?  Add to that work schedule a “kid's sports” schedule on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays (not including game days) where hockey and soccer practices run until dark and finally, as most of the parents of my generation have done; we continue to overload and overburden our kids with the random Cub Scout meeting, a “play date” and some homework/reading before bed. If you get a chance, look into the trailer for Race to No Where www.racetonowhere.com and you’ll see what we are doing to our kids!  The main focus of my blog is to share personal stories and sometimes struggles with my inability to balance life and work, while maintaining the title of Active and Supportive Father, so I am hoping to hear from other parents who struggle the same way and maybe this site can become a “haven” for the overstretched and overloaded as we work to a common goal of finding some tips to balancing the journey of life.  It is clear that society doesn’t make it easy to have a stay at home parent these days, so the “best laid plans” of working from 9am to 430pm, having dinner with the family at 5pm and then skipping and singing our way to soccer practices just isn’t reality.

In contrast, it is more accurate to say that I typically race home (while on a conference call), fly into the house and shout for someone to pick something up and get a uniform on and when they don’t listen the first time, yelling and throwing things (soft things) can help generate more chaos and make me feel like I’m motivating the troops.  Our family continues its passionately loud discussion related to who will eat what for dinner, how fast they can eat it and then we RACE out the door, jump into a car (I go one way) my wife goes another direction and when schedules are really crazy my father-in-law shoves off in a third direction.  Some time around 830pm we get home, get the kids showered, pass out in bed around 10pm and before we know it, the alarm clock is firing at 6am.

If this lead in made you smile and/or nauseous…congratulations, you’re probably in the same boat (because if you don’t have kids, the drama in this article would have made you stop reading and probably stop having sex for a couple of weeks for fear of embarking on the same kind of chaos in the future)!

Your help is requested.  If you are a parent and you have found ways to simplify life, please add your comments! 

The moral of this article:  Simple is good.  I recognize that I am guilty of over scheduling and over committing my children, which in turn, makes our lives (as parents) even crazier.  My wife and I are working to simplify the demand for formal activities and replace them with “play at the park”, hikes on the weekends and time with friends.  After all, what I’ve seen thus far as a parent; our kids may enjoy all of the activities and time with their friends, but at this age, they would trade it all for more time with the family!

Why "Stop the Chase" exists...

I have been "blogging" for a couple of years and although most of my writing has been industry specific, I did use the blogosphere for a short period of time to share details of my personal struggles with life, work and family.  During that time, I was introduced to a number of people who seem to be on a similar "journey", a journey motivated by a search for balance, peace, simplicity and humility.  This blog was created with the intent of helping other people through the sharing of thoughts, opinions and experiences.  This blog, Stop the Chase, is going to have weekly posts, regular links & uploads along with the occasional personal opinion piece targeted at helping others "find balance" with the various aspects of life (parenting, work, relationships and financial). I hope you enjoy.  Feel free to pass this blog around and if you know of other links that could add value, share them with me and I'll ensure they get posted regularly.