Mixing Pods

Are you hurt or injured? Insight into Perseverance

The NFL playoffs are underway and this is the time of year when players don’t want to come out of the game. They are asked by coaches, if they are hurt or injured, as showcased in a scene by James Caan and Omar Epps in the 1993 movie, The Program.

If you are hurt you can still play, manage the pain, and find a way to perform. If you are injured, there is no way you can go on, it’s just not possible, and hopefully, you’ll be back for the next game or even the next season.

One of my best friends is an athletic trainer. I’ve watched Derrick approach his work for years at the collegiate and professional levels. His job entails helping injured players through treatment plans and eventually getting them back ready to play again in the future. However, the moments that he enjoys the most and drives his passion, are those on game day. Once diagnosing that the player is hurt and not injured, he applies the proper medical attention and it becomes all about getting them back into the game as soon as possible. This involves helping the athlete tap into their sense of perseverance and build their confidence that they can go out and perform.

Playing hurt requires perseverance and since this blog is called mixing pods, I wanted to apply it well beyond the football field.

I’ve been inspired by so many examples of perseverance, from those of you battling that crappy thing called cancer, to those taking on the risk to start your own business. Martin Luther King Day is Monday. Talk about a story of perseverance. The entire civil rights movement at its peak, as well as today, requires strength and perseverance. It is being dedicated to the cause, continuing through resistance, pain, and pushing through obstacles.

With 2 and 4-year-old daughters, my days are filled with kissing boo-boos and applying Hello Kitty band-aids. The real challenge that keeps me up at night is determining if I am using the right words and actions to build up skills of perseverance and character. The last thing I want to do is confuse being hurt with being injured, or be the cause of long-term injury.

We all personally determine if we are hurt or injured on a daily basis.

So when life thumps you sometimes, you have to ask yourself if you are hurt or injured?

Are you confusing hurt feelings, with injured relationships?
Do you have the right mindset for the challenge that you are facing?
Do you need help diagnosing the issue?
Are you applying the right ‘treatment’ plan?
Who can help you?
What limitations are you going to accept?
How are you going to persevere?

There are times when we have to help each other get back on the playing field of life. Derrick and I can tell you that.

“Your next blog: Is it over committing or under prioritizing?”

That was the text that I received from Jensen on Friday, November 16th. I had cancelled lunch plans with some of the guys that morning after waffling the day before. I sent a text indicating that I had over committed myself and had to take care of some things at the office.

Sure, Jensen was teasing me and most likely laughing when he wrote it. He knew how much it would bother me.

Getting the boys together is one of those things that gives me a ton of energy. We have a really good crew of lifelong friends and we spark creativity in each other, razz each other for stupid decisions, and do a lot of laughing. Finding the time to get together is getting harder and harder.
My work calendar was wide open when we made the plans and I have been trying to keep personal commitments as much as possible.

Did I over commit or under prioritize? This is one of the questions that I struggle with every day. Balancing activities with friends, family, and especially with the girls; while trying to exceed client expectations, grow an account, strengthen the firm, develop our team, and invest in my own self-development. My word for 2019 is commitment and it applies to all of the above… but has to be handled with care.

One of my challenge is that I’m the king of creating lists of things that I am going to do on a given day (like most of you reading this blog). I have them in categories and usually in the order of importance. However, I seldom apply any constraints to completing them. That means accounting for how long they are going to take or how much time I actually have in the day to get them done. Combine that with the fact that I really like to talk and engage with the girls, it usually results in some late nights.

Unfortunately, it seemes to be the immediate and tactical things that fall into the over committing category. All those things that old people try and tell young people to not take for granted, and say that they regret the most later in life, tend to fall in the under prioritizing category.

Three months later, the question of over committing and under prioritizing hit me in the face again. I actually told Katie that maybe I needed to skip the weekly Sunday night dinner with her family because I have some homework and a few big presentations due this week. I thought it through and after remembering the question, I refocused and shifted the way that I approached the day and made it to dinner.

So even though we didn’t end up having lunch that day in November, the insight and the lesson from one of my best friends made its mark, even if it was just a text.

You can’t herd llamas, but it sure is fun to try!

Have you ever done something that you know won’t yield any results, but you do it anyway?

We were driving on I-70 past the Eisenhower Tunnel towards Silverthorne to go skiing over the holidays. Katie and I were reminded of the days we spent at a ranch nearby with our friend Wade, where he lived for a short time and during the summers while we were in college. This was when we were all young pups about 20 years ago… we had so many great memories there.

One day we took the horses out for a ride. We weren’t that experienced at riding horses and didn’t have a destination in mind. OK, we had no idea what we were doing. There were also a couple of Llamas on the ranch and somehow we started trying to herd them. They would tolerate us for a while and we would think we had them heading a particular direction. A City Slicker’s dream, we were cowboys and a cowgirl.

However, Llamas are like cats, they are unherdable (if that is actually a word.) They would give us that llama look (yes, llamas can give some serious crusties and are very good at giving dirty looks) and veer off. We would try again and again. No luck.

Anyway, I’m not sure many of you will ever have the chance to try and heard llama’s on a horseback, but if you do, I highly recommend it.

I guess the insight that I am trying to share here is that sometimes you need ‘a just because activity’ once in a while. Something different and out of the ordinary, with no expectations for any results, value, or benefit. Something you do just for fun.

Our 4-year-old daughter Maggie used to always say , “llama llama ding dong!”, which I think came from the children’s book series (my google search shows all sorts of results for it, I had no idea). Wherever she picked it up (maybe the the movie ‘The Emperor’s New Groove’), she always had fun saying it. You could see the free spirit that a 4-year-old should have, marching to her own drum, in her own world.

So the next time that you find yourself about to engage in a harmless daily diversion that you don’t think will result in anything, but find it satisfying and refreshing… Just say ‘llama llama ding dong’ and have some fun with it! There is plenty of time for all of your purpose filled activities.

That’s flocking important!

I was out on the morning dog walk and saw the flocks of geese in the middle of the pond huddling together for safety. Sleeping for the night and staying safe from the coyotes in the open space nearby.

My first thought was that maybe they didn’t fly far south enough for the winter and should be hanging out with Mike Cress in Houston, or Don Mamone in Dallas.

Then I thought about the love/hate relationship that my neighbors have with the geese. They are the subject of a little angst in our neighborhood. Some people love them (even feed them), while others can’t stand their constant pooping all over the sidewalks.

Our last dog, Prestwick, was raised as a bird dog prior to going to school to be a guide dog for the blind, so he used to chase them right back into the water. Some of the neighbors would applaud him, others would scold him (and me of course!) Our current dog, Buford, leaves them alone, except for the one night he decided to go check them out in the middle of the frozen pond (thanks to Westminster Fire Department for getting him out).

So I just did a quick look up on Geese and actually, they have some admirable instincts, which makes me want to like them a bit more:

Geese have strong affections for others in their group.
Geese are very loyal.
They mate for life and are protective of their partners and offspring.
If a goose gets sick or is wounded, a couple of other geese may drop out of formation to help and protect him.
They will try to stay with the disabled goose until he dies or is able to fly again.
They fly in the V formation to for aerodynamics and to maintain track of each other.
When the lead one gets tired, another one takes over so it can rest in the draft.

So the insight from the geese is that flocks are important!

So as I try and maintain ‘commitment’ to the 2019 goals that I mentioned in my last blog, it will be important to engage my various flocks. The family flock, the friends flock, the co-worker flock. In some cases, I might need all the flocks to help me at the same time (this blog is called Mixing Pods)!

Who is in your flock? Find them, support them, and stick together. It’s flocking important!

What is your one word for 2019?

This is the sister blog (if that is a thing) to my Perficient Blog (What is the one word that will define success in 2019!) In that blog, I tied this concept to business strategy and operating model metrics. However, since Jensen makes fun of me for using business speak in the ‘friends pods’, I thought I would tailor this to be much more personal.

I have definitely been in a transitional phase over the past couple of years, making a significant move from being work-centered to family-centered. I think this phase was at its peak towards the end of 2016. Maggie was 2 years-old, and Addie was born that September. It’s not that I was I was a dead beat dad or husband, but I was still getting used to staying present and focused on the family throughout the evening. I used to put in a lot of time in the evenings making sure all of my client and firm deliverables were completed to my satisfaction. I was finding myself gasping at the end of the night when I looked at the clock and realized how tired I was. Things had changed.

Over that Thanksgiving, I read Angela Duckworth’s book Grit, the Power of Passion and Perseverance. She talks about how to build grit and the need for an “ultimate concern”, which is a supreme goal that is so meaningful to you that it provides structure and discipline to everything you do. She described a method for gaining focus by listing 25 goals, circling the top 5 and avoiding all others at all costs, while discovering themes. Her hierarchical approach of rolling up low level and mid level goals to the ultimate concern really resonated with me.

At the time, all of my goals and the ultimate concern at the top of my hierarchy ended up bringing out the word ‘engaged’. I covered my four goal categories in the blog a couple of days ago, Why having fun will be my top work goal in 2019! I could assess everything that I was doing in every aspect to my life in that moment to the word engaged. The best part is that I could quickly get back on track if I found myself not being present or missing an opportunity if necessary.

It started off being something to focus me on work/life balance and being engaged with the kids. But I also found that I was using it to assess if I was engaged with my work, team members, and clients.

I think this approach is way more productive than doing New Year’s resolutions. So I recommend taking some time to think about it. Lay out your goals and see what theme surfaces and the one word that sums it up. There is no right or wrong word, you just have to describe a meaningful word to you. A word that describes how you want to show up every day. Then do it! Everything else will fall into place.

This year, my word is ‘commitment’. I’ve signed up to do a lot and I have some ambitious goals. I’m going to need some serious commitment and discipline to maintain the right balance and get the results that I’m striving to achieve. I’ll need some help. It’s important to engage others in this so that they can be in your corner, help you stay focused, and keep you accountable (not to be confused with judging).

So what will your word be:

Creativity?
Kindness?
Focus?
Discipline?

You may have one for work, one for your family, or it can all be the same. But at the end of the day, it’s kind of like the “one thing” that Curly is referencing in the 1991 movie, City Slickers. It’s your one word.

Why I asked Santa for a Crepe Maker?

The big guy came through and Santa brought me that crepe maker that I wanted this year. It might seem like a random thing for a 40-year-old guy to ask for (not that 40-year-old asking for something from Santa isn’t), but it was with purpose.

Katie and I were on a trip to Seattle this summer and took a ferry over to Bainbridge Island one morning. We ended up choosing the crepe shop to grab a bite. There was a fairly long line, so we had front row seats to watch them make them.

I was thinking…

There is a ton of variety and you can go sweet or savory
They are made to order for each individual
They cook fast
They look fun to make with the spreader and turner
What else can I use gobs of Nutella on?

and that’s when it hit me… I was going to make crepe making my thing. I could turn it into a Saturday morning family ritual when we are not in a hurry to get to get the kids to school and off to work. When the kids are older, we can make them with their friends after a sleep over.

Maybe it was just me getting nostalgic. Making breakfast was my dad’s thing growing up. He made pancakes and waffles for us growing up all the time, especially on weekends for all of our friends. He made some really great blueberry pancakes and I always liked the maple walnut Belgium waffle. However, he was also known to put all sorts of things in the pancakes, including what we had the night before for dinner (mashed potatoes, cheese, and the infamous pork and beans). It is definitely a great memory from my childhood and one that I wanted to start creating with my own family.

So we broke the seal the other morning and gave it a try. After tossing out the first batter (I read the waffle batter instructions) and overcooking the first crepe, I had officially made my first crepe. Of course it was the simple banana and Nutella crepe.

It turns out that making crepes is going to be an art that I’ll need to work on over time! Figuring the timing on flipping the crepe, how to fold them, what is better inside vs. outside etc. I’ve never been known for my creativity and artistic finesse. The good news, is that the girls are only 2 and 4-years-old, so I have lots of Saturday mornings to practice!

*My First Crepe (Don’t judge a book by it’s cover)*

Why ‘having fun’ will be my top work goal in 2019!

This time of year, I spend hours writing and honing my goals for the following year. You could say that I am super compulsive about it (it’s sort ridiculous). I refuse to call them New Year’s Resolutions since that sounds so temporary and everyone knows they always get broken. I try and elicit my friends and family into the ritual and in return, I get a lot of eye rolls. After 20 years, Katie will at least humor me know and she’ll have at least 3 things on the ready for when I bring it up. She makes sure that I know that she is done and doesn’t need any help editing them.

The good news is that this year, I will really be building on and executing a well rounded set of goals from last year across all the categories (yes, there are goal categories). Family, Work, Community, and Personal. I usually land at 3-5 goals in each area, but no more than 5 and they all have to be meaty and measurable.

I use trello to organize them on the computer and love the mobile app. You can do all sorts of stuff with the cards like move them around, label, color code, create checklists, due dates, etc. However, this year I’m also going to go back to a physical paper planner again. My friend Candace Mau and I been talking about the power of using pen and paper when you are getting creative and laying out your month, week, and day.

Anyway, the thing is that every year, I seem to put a goal to have fun in my list of work goals. Mainly to protect myself from myself and to put in a reminder in there to not take things so seriously. I’ve had some years where I was just wound up too tight, stressed about work, and and ended up in quite the funk (thank goodness for friends and family).

So this year, I think I’m leading with the goal to have fun, and will use it as a competitive advantage. I am definitely at my best when I am having fun with the people that I work with, bringing positive energy, and just being conscious of my mindset. I think the chances of getting the results that I am looking for across the other goals will be much higher and I’ll be more engaged (more on that in another blog). I’m hoping it helps keep things in perspective, enables me to stay grateful, and laugh a bit at myself.

My goal setting and planner addiction over the years

The calm before the storm…

Christmas morning is the pinnacle of series of family events for our family this time of year. For about 20 years, Katie and I traveled to two traditional Christmas Eve Dinners, gone to Midnight mass, and spent the night at the the in-laws house. You might think that is strange since our kids are 2 and 4 years old, except that when I met Katie, her siblings on her mom’s side were 2, 4, 6, and 8, and 8, 10 on her Dad’s side.

In the past 10 years or so, we’ve had two yellow labs as a part of our lives and they have an internal alarm clock, driven by their stomach. So while the rest of the family is sleeping in just a little bit longer, my holiday tradition has become the early morning walks with the dog.

Buford on the Christmas Morning Walk

Walking the neighborhoods and paths during the quiet holiday mornings has to be one of the most peaceful places to be. Everything has slowed down enough to reflect on the year, be extremely grateful for the people in my life, and just enjoy the moment.

When I return, I always have thoughts of reenacting those old Folgers commercials on day time TV, where I would brew a pot of coffee and let the smell wake up the rest of the family. Well, now with Kuerig K-kups just don’t have the power and honestly, I just can’t figure out how to use my in laws coffee maker.

So then we come back and wait for the family to arise, for the next few hours are going to be a whirlwind of excitement…

It will just be a matter of moments

The day it all changed… well, actually it was the day after.

It wasn’t the day my daughter was born that changed my life, it was the day after when I had the chance to bond with her one-on-one for the first time.

Maggie was born on July 15th at 7:14 am. Her first day in this world was full of so much excitement. Her first breaths, her first feeding, her first poop, and she met so many members of her new family.

Katie hadn’t slept 45 hours or so (you know, giving birth and all) and was finally getting the most well deserved rest of her life. Well sort of, I think she had feeding every 2 hours that night and was constantly checking to ensure she was breathing.

So on the morning of the 16th about 7:00 am, just 24 hours after coming into the world, it was the first time it was just Maggie and me awake.

The room was quiet and only natural light from the summer sun was coming through the window. She just looked up at me and smiled. Maybe it was just gas, but it sure felt real to me.

This is the day my world changed!

Everything changed. My relationship with Katie changed (in a great way), the way I approached work changed, what stressed me out changed, and my compass was re-calibrated.

I don’t have the best memory, but this is one day that I can recall vividly from all 5 senses. It’s been a really fun 4 and half years, but the funny thing is that the impacts of the day that I became a dad (and the day after) have really just begun.

Another ingredient in my mixing bowl.

Who is in your corner… or on your chairlift?

I went skiing today with a couple of my closest long time friends. It has been years since we have hit the slopes together and I think my favorite parts of the day were the rides up the mountain on the chairlift. It gave us a chance to catch up with each other and pick up right where we left off.

Throughout the day we reminisced about the old days, what’s going on in our lives today, and shared some of our goals for the future. I was reminded about how these guys have been in my corner for years, sharing life experiences and supporting me when I needed it.

Chairlifts and Conversations

A ride on the chairlift enables you to be totally present, actively listening to those with you, while you are looking over beautiful terrain. It has to be one of the best places to have a conversation. It also requires you to stay to the point and gives you an exit since you must dismount at the end the ride.

Looking back, the chairlift has always been an important place in my life. Skiing was one of the family activities that we did with my father I’ll cherish all of the great conversations we had on the long rides up the mountain. Of course there were the awkward ones, like when I was kid and he fulfilled his obligation to talk to me about the birds and the bees. I was stuck there, nowhere to run and hide.

I spend hours talking with my brother-in-law (much younger than me) about his transitions from high school to college to the real world. I also had him pinned down with no where to run.

These 10-15 minute spurts of time with friends and family (and sometimes alone with my thoughts) have been some of the most important moments in my life.

Taking it in with Mike and Derrick
Derrick and his selfies