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The World I Plan to End

The end of the world is happening tomorrow.  It’s real.  Thanks Mayans.  What are you going to do about it?

The world that I plan to end is the world where I have ideas about things I’m going to do instead of the results of things I did.

The world that I plan to end is the world where I feel like it might be career suicide to say that I won’t come to a 8A meeting unless it’s dire urgent, because I want to have the ability to see my kids in the morning.

The world that I plan to end is the world where I acquire more things than I retire/sell/donate.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I have allowed to lapse the fact that I brought my wife flowers on my way home from work every Friday.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I continue to perpetrate white collar crimes of humanity on my garage, and instead actually learn how to build what I really want out there.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I watch re-runs of certain TV shows over and over again.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I don’t fully utilize my vacation time each year.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I dwell on the near misses of greatness in my career, or on the amazing trajectories of the careers of people I know.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I first seek to be understood, instead of seeking to understand.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I stand on the sidelines during a the public discussion of a major public policy issue.

What will you end in your world tomorrow?

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An Experiment In Silence

As part of my time off between leaving one job and starting a new one, I decided I really needed to get some time away from my daily technology interactions.  I wanted to break the annoying habit I have of pulling my phone out of my pocket every 60 seconds to see if a new email has arrived, checking Hacker News, Techmeme or any of the other minute by minute distractions.

My itinerary was to take me to Winthrop, WA, where I had been told lay some amazing X-country skiing.  I discovered XC skiing last year in Whistler and fell in love.  I love the workout, of course, and the fact that you can really punish yourself if you want to while out on the trail.  Beyond that, it’s all new to me.  There’s little on snow I won’t go down on a snowboard.

I remember finding myself on top of a frozen 30 foot waterfall once, and proudly declaring to my friends, “my heath insurance card is in my inside pocket” before completely botching my first jump turn and falling the rest of the way.  Sadly, the daily cash flow of skiing/snowboarding is crazy high, and I am no longer getting the required endorphins to make it worth it.  I’m willing to go to new mountains for the change in scenery, but I’m at that point in my life where I no longer see double black diamonds, but instead I see loss of income potential.

The other thing I dig about XC skiing is that it doesn’t appear anyone else has figured out what a kick ass way to spend your time it is.  Not entirely true – there’s a sizeable population of older (dare I say “wiser”) folks out on the trails, however, for the most part, there is no one on the trails.  I could count the people I ran across in a 3 hour sessions with both my hands.  Lovely.  It’s not glitz and glamour.  It’s you, your skis, some hard work, and lovely scenery.  Perfect.

Unique to this trip, I was alone.  My lovely wife gave me a hall pass, which meant I was alone from Tues early AM to Friday PM.  No checking in, and no calls unless it was an emergency.  It was truly and unplug vacation.

Knowing that I was going to be turning the data plan off on my phone once I crossed over Stevens Pass, I thought I would try another interesting experiment.  What would happen if I simply didn’t talk for the entirety of the trip?  To anyone.  Not a word.  I wasn’t sure I could do it.  My internal dialog alone is enough to, as my mother put it, “drive a saint crazy.”  I wondered how my brain, and more importantly my psyche, would handle this.

I’ll save all of the sordid details and skip to the end for the reader.  I made it all the way through.  Well, right up until Officer Friendly gave me a speeding ticket somewhere along my route home for doing 65 in a 60.  My first ticket in 10 years?  Groan.  OK, here are some of my observations:

I was surprised how much my jaw hurt by the end of the first day.  I was actively suppressing the desire to speak, and forcing my jaw shut.  It’s possible that I was clinching it, but it ached by the time the sun went down.

I was surprised at how quickly people adapted to my situation.  At first, I felt it necessary to explain in long-hand written form that I had no voice to anyone who would be helping me or expect to communicate with me.  I bought a pad and pen at a grocery on the drive, and on the first day during lunch, dinner, and while getting the skis/trail pass, I had written out in paragraph form, anew each time, that I had no voice, sorry for being a pain, blah blah.  Most folks just shrugged and went about helping me with as little trouble as possible.  By the start of the second day, I abandoned that pretense, and would simply point at my throat and make a “nope” cutting hand gesture.  Again, everyone just adapted immediately, smiled and life went on.  I could point at food, and pay for things, so life wasn’t that hard.  Until I locked my keys in my car.  I wasn’t staying at the Sun Mountain Lodge, but to the receptionist behind the counter that day (Megan, I believe your name was), you unwittingly participated in my experiment.  I considered calling time out, as it seemed unfair to ask for help from someone under the false pretense of my not having a voice.  She called a couple of companies for me, and argued with one person when she thought their price was too high.  The issue resolved itself, and I will certainly stay there next time I am in Winthrop.  They won a customer.  However, it was what she did when I left that surprised me the most.  I was feeling pretty rotten that this person had to spend time with me on account of my being voiceless, so I wrote the following:

“Sometimes it can be hard to ask for help when you have no voice, but stupidity sometimes overwhelms self reliance.  Thank you for helping when you really didn’t need to.”

She asked if she could pull the page out of my pad and keep it.  I was floored.  Great people there at the Sun Mountain Lodge.

I was surprised how much slower time moved.  I wasn’t watching TV.  I allowed myself a movie (go Kindle Fire) on two of the nights, but other than that, I was reading books on my Kindle, sleeping, riding my bike on the trainer, eating or skiing.  That was it.  Time slowed way way way down.  It was fantastic.

I was surprised at how much my internal dialog dissipated.  My thoughts seemed to slow down and focus.  I felt more creative.  I felt like my train of thought was hitched to one track at a time, and that the track ran for more than just a few feet before wanting to jump to the next track.  I felt less caffeinated, despite having not changed my caffeine levels.

I was surprised at how much more purposeful I was in my interpersonal interactions.  During the entirety of my trip, I felt like I was a burden on others.  Whether my lack of voice was real or fabricated is irrelevant.  I think I would have still felt the same way.

It was a wonderful rebalancing trip, and an interesting experiment.  Winthrop is, to put it nicely, a blink and you miss it sort of town.  I am now interested in replicating this experiment during a a full Friday to Sunday stint in a city of measurable size, with sufficient daily activities as to require human interaction.  The handful of weeks off between jobs has been absolutely wonderful; a fantastic gift.

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Thank You Bell Helmets

This is a video thank you card to the men and women who work at Easton Bell.  My goal is to land this in front of Easton Bell President, Chris Zimmerman (I think I figured out his email).  I’m using all the tricks in my bag.  The tweet went out this morning, some buddy mails, this blog post, some spelunking through LinkedIn, etc.

I know I have next to no talent in movie making or editing.  I used my Flip HD and personal laptop on this project, working in close partnership with my companion – my beautiful 6 year old daughter.  She had a great time with the filming and the editing, and loved seeing the final product.  Sorry in advance for the wonky volume.

If you watch the video, and it touches you in some way…share it with a friend.  I would love for the team at Easton Bell to see the reach and impact of their products, to know that they each had a hand in saving a life, keeping a family together, and keeping a smile on the faces of my family.  It’s also nice to use social media to pass around stories of companies that done good.

 

**note: I think the email in question is [email protected].  I am going to send a link to the video with a nice note.  If anyone sends email to Easton Bell, please be respectful of inboxes, and remember, we want them to be happy about this. Smile

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Uncommon Economic Indicators

I am always interested in things that we all notice but don’t quite put together for what they really are.  I think we can all agree that the economy is tough right now.  I’m a little shielded from that with my job and employer doing well enough, so that makes things a little easier.  However, I know that it’s tough times out there for many people, and that bums me out.

My wife came by for a quick visit and we turned it into lunch with daddy at work.  During the conversation, she shared that she had been at the mall with the kids.  She also noted that “the ratio of men to women in the play area is going up during the middle of the week.”  Just last week, when I was on daddy day care last week, I noticed that there were quite a few dudes there as well.

So with the economy on the skids, upward goes the number of men with nothing to do in the middle of the day.  With an eye toward painting a silver lining on things, at least they are getting to spend more time with their kids.

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Finding Your Bliss

As I have been spending the better part of the last two months thinking about what to do next with my career, I have actually been doing something I never would have thought: reading books on the topic of “finding yourself.”

The first book that I started reading, way back in early January, was the Tony Robbins book “Awaken the Giant Within.” Sure, we have all seen the late night informercials with Tony, and some might even get the reference to Banana Hands. I don’t think I would have given this book much more than a second glance had a friend of mine from business school (someone whose judgement I trust immensely) not been singing the praises of a Tony Robbins weekend he attended. I happened to see the book in an airport bookstore and figured “what the hell?”

This is a long book, and certainly filled with what many would call common sense advice. Mostly, I think that what a person gets out of these books is based in no small part on what they were trying to get out of it. I was not trying to change my life, nor was I trying to turn a huge debt-load into a million dollar plus surplus in twelve months. Many of the personal stories in the book are of this variety. More than anything, I am trying to gain clarity on what I want out of my working career, and, more broadly, how much I want to let my working career infiltrate my private life.

The second book that I started reading around the same time is called “The Pathfinder” by Nicholas Lore. This book recommendation came courtesy of my wife, who has infinitely more EQ than I do. She knows what a traumatic experience it has been taking a germ of an idea to founding a company, building and releasing product, and ultimately selling it. While it was a fine outcome, the least likely bit was the feeling of emptiness inside of me. How much of what I had accomplished really had anything to do with me, and how much of that experience did I want to go through again? I wasn’t sure how to even begin thinking through these problems, but considering that I had a two month vacation in front of me, I figured now was as good a time as any to sort it out.

I am not sure how others use these types of books, but I went about it like I would a class in college. I had a notebook where I was taking notes, and I was dutifully going through the exercises. The big problem I have is that there is no teacher, and as such, no one of whom I could ask questions. These books are laid out to walk you through a specific experience, but they both felt very long on having exercises for the reader, and little in the way of material helping you know if you were doing things right. I tend to be pretty cerebral, and, certainly as an engineer, I like order and process. Throughout the entirety of both books, I felt like I wasn’t making progress, due in no small part to the fact that I wanted to feel like I was making progress, and without some reference point or instructor, it was hard for me to feel like I was.

Do I feel like I know more about myself now than I did before endeavoring to tackle these books? Yes. Do I actually feel more calm and less stressed about what will come next? You bet. I just am wondering how much of that had to do with the thought exercises of the books rather than the fact that I have also been on a dream vacation for two months, in two dream locations, with my family and no other obligations.I suspect that a good bit of my time in my future writings will be dealing with this topic of inner bliss. As I begin to accept invitations from companies to hear their pitches as to why I should come work for them, I feel better equipped to go through the process with the mindset of doing what is right for me, with little in the way of compromise, than taking a job to fulfill the life need of having employment, and with that being able to feed and clothe my kids. Setting the parameters for personal satisfaction is something that I did not do enough of early on in my career, nor do I get the sense that this has had any kind of importance amongst my peer group. Yes, people talk about work-life balance, but what does that really mean to them, and what are they really doing to achieve it. Besides, I don’t think that the discussion is entirely about work-life balance, but rather work-life optimization. You can be working the right amount of hours per week, but hate your job. You can be spending the right amount of time at home, but hate where you live.

When you remove the stress of where your next meal is going to come from, or the worries of having some number of monthly checks you have to write to creditors, it’s surprising the level of clarity that can be achieved.