Today is a bittersweet day for me. Today, I hang up the shield. After 10 years at Phillips 66 (Phillips 66 was spun off from ConocoPhillips in 2012, the split was announced a month after I started and I began working on the split at that point so I consider pretty much all of my time at ConocoPhillips as Phillips 66 work) I am moving on to a new opportunity starting on Monday, but before I go, I wanted to reflect on my time at Phillips 66. I have much to be thankful to Phillips 66 for. I started as an individual contributor and worked through several levels of leadership including functional leadership in some of our IT and company global events. I met some of the best people I’ve ever worked with in my entire 20-year career and was able to channel my passion for personal productivity into a group that is now one of the primary vehicles for end-user training at the company. I have been very blessed to have been at Phillips 66, my personal growth has been astronomical.
As I move onto a new endeavor though, I want to speak to my friends, former employees, and mentees at Phillips 66. I meant it when I said I wanted to stay in touch. You are all phenomenal people and I am deeply grateful to have met you and I’m one of your biggest fans and hope you go on to crush all of your goals. Remember, I’m only a text/email/phone call away and I mean that.
Keep Providing Energy and Improving Lives with Safety, Honor, & Commitment and I will be over here cheering you on!
(that’s me in the bottom left, my grandfather is in the top right)
My paternal grandfather passed away in the summer of 2001, the year I graduated from Drake University and began my professional career. Thankfully, I was able to see him a few weeks before he passed away. He was a BRILLIANT man. There wasn’t a problem that man couldn’t solve if he put his mind to it. I’m pretty sure my, “there has got to be a better way of doing this” attitude was passed down to me from him. He was also a rascally old cuss as well and was more than willing to tell you how he felt about anything he had an opinion on. I have caught myself several times since he passed away wondering what he would think about the world we live in today. This is my letter to him, explaining where we find ourselves in 2021…
Grandpa, You wouldn’t believe what the world has become like since you left…
Remember how you used to work for Phillips Petroleum as an electrician, even working on Frank Phillps’ electric model train? You won’t believe it, but I work for Phillips 66 now.
Remember those things called computers? You never had one in your house, but would you believe my phone is more powerful than any computer you ever encountered and it fits in my pocket? I can now have a video chat with anyone I want to anywhere in the world instantaneously because of the internet that was just gaining traction while you were still alive. It was my daughter’s birthday this week and mom got to watch Abbie unwrap her presents even though we are in Owasso and she’s in St. Louis! When I was in India back in 2019 I could video call with my wife (I wish you would have gotten to meet her!) even though there was an 11.5 hour time difference between us and I was half a world away.
Remember how Jason and I used to have to be so quiet during the drive through Tulsa when we went to visit you because you were super cautious about our safety? You wouldn’t believe it, but we’re starting to see cars that can drive themselves so that people don’t even have to pay attention.
You used to watch the news every night, now between the major news networks broadcasting 24 hours a day, the internet, and these apps (computer programs that run on our phones) called Facebook, Twitter, and others we now have “news” (really, a lot of it is just someone spouting off their opinion) constantly at our fingertips. You would think it would make us more informed but really it just makes everyone frustrated all the time with people they don’t agree with.
Grandpa, you wouldn’t believe it, but shortly after you died, I went to work for a medical software company that has helped advance patient care drastically, yet in 2020 and into 2021 a new virus has ravaged the world and created a global pandemic like the 1918 flu pandemic you learned about in school. The pandemic forced the world to shut down which meant for a lot of the last year my kids have done a significant portion of their schooling completely virtual (through a computer screen, a video call with their whole classroom).
The pandemic started with a worldwide “kumbaya, we can get through anything” moment as the world banded together to beat this virus, but you wouldn’t believe how isolated people became because of it, sitting alone or with just their family watching movies or working completely remotely over the internet and gobbling up news and opinions all day long. Partner the isolation with the fact that 2020 was an election year in the United States and we were sitting on a powder keg ready to explode.
Then, the world watched as a white police officer knelt on a black man’s neck for nine minutes while he cried out for his momma and the fuse ignited and the world cried out, “WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH!” George Floyd was not the only person of color to tragically lose their life unjustly last year but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back and has led to some really good and VERY necessary conversations about systemic racism and the way our society’s laws and policies are stacked against people who are not white. The really sad part is, as time progressed the conversations and the fact we were having then became another issue that divided us as a country.
As November rolled around bringing with it the US presidential election things got even dicier. Fueled by misinformation and wild accusations on both sides tempers flared even hotter and on January 6th, 2021 the unthinkable happened, a mob of people, in the name of patriotism, stormed the US Capitol during a sitting session of Congress, all while the world watched.
We’ve got several vaccines now to help us fight the virus and some people are projecting that things might be back to normal soon, but grandpa, you wouldn’t believe where we’re at and how we got ourselves into this mess, too many people talking and definitely not enough people listening. I could really use your wisdom right now. I’m trying to be a voice of reason and banding together with like-minded folks looking for solutions instead of just complaining about all of the problems, but sometimes it’s just hard grandpa. I’m trying to make you proud, but I’m also trying to make this world a place I’m proud to hand over to my children and their generation.
I miss you, grandpa,
Jeff
I’ve often heard it said, “if you wouldn’t treat your grandmother like that, don’t treat anyone else that way either,” but honestly a better question might be, “would your grandparents be proud of who you are online, would your children be proud when they’re older if they saw the things you post online and the way you talk to/about other people?”
I recently made a post on LinkedIn that got a lot of attention and interactions so I wanted to take a moment to share it here and expound on it with a blog post.
I’ve been in IT/Software Development troubleshooting problems for 20 years now and it never ceases to amaze me what question unlocks the answer to solving the problem at hand.
I was on a troubleshooting call with my team and the other teams involved with troubleshooting an issue that has been plaguing one of our servers for months now. About halfway through the conversation I thought about asking a dumb question because I knew it really wouldn’t solve our problem.
We were getting towards the end of the conversation and the only option we really had at that point was a Hail Mary type solution that no one was particularly fond of but was the only option we could see with the information we had.
So I asked my dumb question…
Which led to a question from one of the server experts on the call…
Which led to an explanation that triggered a light bulb moment for the expert.
Now we have a good path forward and our teams will hopefully be able to solve this longstanding issue today.
As we hung up the phone last night I realized that in most of the troubleshooting situations I’ve found myself in over the years, it’s the seemingly dumb question that unlocks the resolution…
The post above got a lot of interaction (for me) and resonated with a lot of people. To expound on the post though, how do you ask the dumb question well?
Don’t be known for the dumb question. This one should be pretty self-explanatory but if you’re known for asking the dumb questions, that’s not a good thing.
Admit that it’s a dumb question. I’m not a big fan of the term “thinking outside the box” because I subscribe more to the concept of throwing away the box in the first place. Not everyone is there though so you may need to make sure people understand that you’re asking the question to spur on discussion, not because you feel the question has merit.
As a leader, use the dumb question sparingly. In the scenario I described above, we had come to the point where we had pretty much exhausted all options. What was needed was something that would get people out of their current mental groove so they could look at the problem in a different light and see things they hadn’t seen before. In most cases, the grooves are there for a reason so knocking people out of the groove too often is just plain annoying.
Two of the commenters on the post mentioned humility/vulnerability and while I wasn’t thinking in those terms when I asked the question, I think they’re on to something. If our teams see us willing to ask the dumb question and not always try to save face, how much better will they be because they’re willing to ask the dumb question because they’ve seen it modeled?
Statistically speaking, more than likely, when (if?) you went to the gym this morning, the parking lot was probably a little emptier, you’ve had that tub of ice cream, or are already behind on some other resolution you set at the beginning of the year. As nice as it is that you can now get your favorite bench for International Chest Day (a.k.a. Monday) you’re probably pretty frustrated with yourself at this moment.
Let yourself off the hook… and move forward…
I’ve never been a fan of new year’s resolutions; what I am a big fan of is continuous improvement and building systems that move you towards your goals and who you want to be. When people ask me how to do that, one of the first tips I give them is to find that slack time in their schedule and find some small habit to implement.
For me, from a personal improvement standpoint, my favorite slack time to take advantage of is that few minutes while my laptop is starting up in the morning. My coffee is always ready before I sit down so it truly is slack time. I always keep some business or personal improvement book on my desk and read a chapter as I’m waiting for my laptop to log in and my autostart applications (you are automatically starting the applications you use every day aren’t you?).
As I mentioned above, they’re usually business or personal improvement books, however, I would recommend you start with either Tools of Titans or Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss. Why do I recommend you start with one of these two books? Because they’re MASSIVE! Tools of Titans is 736 9″ x 7″ pages and Tribe of Mentors is 624 9″ x 7″ pages, these things are tomes. I want to teach you a lesson. A lot of people I talk to tell me they don’t have time to read when in reality they have plenty of time to read and by taking it in small bite-sized chunks anyone can get through these extremely large books, it may take you a year to get through one but, if you can get through one of these suckers those tiny little business parable books you have on your shelf will be nothing.
I don’t remember exactly when I received my first book by Terry Brooks. It had to be somewhere in the range of when I was 12 to 13 years old. I received a paperback copy of The Sword of Shannara as a gift from my parents because my parents knew I was into fantasy novels.
My copies of the first and last Shannara books as well as a commemorative coin from the (virtual) ShannaraCon 2020
Since that first book, Terry has written over 30 more works in the realm of the Four Lands culminating in his final book The Fall of Shannara: The Last Druid published 43 years after the first book. For fans of The Lord of the Rings, The Sword of Shannara will seem very similar, but it is a different book and is the first entry into a broad world that Terry has taken readers through for 43 years. The series was also turned into a TV show called The Shannara Chronicles as well which was an adaptation/amalgamation of several of the Shannara books.
If you are looking for something to read and want to get sucked into a world of magic, elves, dwarves, & trolls, I would strongly encourage you to check out Terry Brooks, starting with The Sword of Shannara. Terry has a reading orders page on his website you can use to track your progress.
Up to this point, as I’ve been relaunching my blog, I’ve been really consistent with my FollowFriday posts, this week though, I am going to forego my usual FollowFriday post and write from the heart.
As I’ve watched what has gone on in our country and world over the last year or so, I’ve watched people tear each other apart through a computer/phone screen on the web and social media. I’ve watched people become people that if you would have shown them the future they never would have believed they would become. It has been a slow drift, almost imperceptible. As the pandemic started in 2020 we banded together, a true “We are the World” moment. Then, as more and more things happened last year between the tragedies surrounding George Floyd, Ahmad Arbury, & Breonna Taylor, the political tension stirred up by the US Elections, and the pandemic and virus that just won’t go away it seems like people slowly lost their grip on human decency. I’ve watched normally mild-mannered people completely vilify people on the other side of the aisle/issue that has them currently triggered spewing things I would have never thought they’d express.
It breaks my heart to see it and recently, it has gotten me thinking quite a bit about anchors, those unmoving truths that keep us grounded. As a person of faith I’m reminded of verses like Hebrews 6:19a, talking about Jesus and the promises of God the author of the letter to the Hebrews says:
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
Hebrews 6:19a – NIV
Faith is the most important anchor however, I was also reminded tonight of other anchors that we have in this life to help keep us grounded and I realized that part of my problem lately is I haven’t been consistently working out & lifting weights like I usually do, something that will be remedied in the coming weeks.
I’m reminded of an article I read a really long time ago by punk/rock artist Henry Rollins. I know it’s long, but it’s definitely worth the read.
I believe that the definition of definition is reinvention.
To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. Completely.
When I was young I had no sense of myself. All I was, was a product of all the fear and humiliation I suffered. Fear of my parents. The humiliation of teachers calling me “garbage can” and telling me I’d be mowing lawns for a living. And the very real terror of my fellow students. I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my size. I was skinny and clumsy, and when others would tease me I didn’t run home crying, wondering why. I knew all too well. I was there to be antagonized. In sports I was laughed at. A spaz. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made me wild and unpredictable. I fought with some strange fury. The other boys thought I was crazy.
I hated myself all the time. As stupid at it seems now, I wanted to talk like them, dress like them, carry myself with the ease of knowing that I wasn’t going to get pounded in the hallway between classes.
Years passed and I learned to keep it all inside. I only talked to a few boys in my grade. Other losers. Some of them are to this day the greatest people I have ever known. Hang out with a guy who has had his head flushed down a toilet a few times, treat him with respect, and you’ll find a faithful friend forever. But even with friends, school sucked. Teachers gave me hard time. I didn’t think much of them either.
Then came Mr. Pepperman, my adviser. He was a powerfully built Vietnam veteran, and he was scary. No one ever talked out of turn in his class. Once one kid did and Mr. P. lifted him off the ground and pinned him to the blackboard.
Mr. P. could see that I was in bad shape, and one Friday in October he asked me if I had ever worked out with weights. I told him no. He told me that I was going to take some of the money that I had saved and buy a hundred-pound set of weights at Sears. As I left his office, I started to think of things I would say to him on Monday when he asked about the weights that I was not going to buy. Still, it made me feel special. My father never really got that close to caring. On Saturday I bought the weights, but I couldn’t even drag them to my mom’s car. An attendant laughed at me as he put them on a dolly.
Monday came and I was called into Mr. P.’s office after school. He said that he was going to show me how to work out. He was going to put me on a program and start hitting me in the solar plexus in the hallway when I wasn’t looking. When I could take the punch we would know that we were getting somewhere. At no time was I to look at myself in the mirror or tell anyone at school what I was doing.
In the gym he showed me ten basic exercises. I paid more attention than I ever did in any of my classes. I didn’t want to blow it. I went home that night and started right in. Weeks passed, and every once in a while Mr. P. would give me a shot and drop me in the hallway, sending my books flying. The other students didn’t know what to think. More weeks passed, and I was steadily adding new weights to the bar. I could sense the power inside my body growing. I could feel it.
Right before Christmas break I was walking to class, and from out of nowhere Mr. Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest. I laughed and kept going. He said I could look at myself now. I got home and ran to the bathroom and pulled off my shirt. I saw a body, not just the shell that housed my stomach and my heart. My biceps bulged. My chest had definition. I felt strong. It was the first time I can remember having a sense of myself. I had done something and no one could ever take it away. You couldn’t say **** to me.
It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons I have learned from the Iron. I used to think that it was my adversary, that I was trying to lift that which does not want to be lifted. I was wrong. When the Iron doesn’t want to come off the mat, it’s the kindest thing it can do for you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it wouldn’t teach you anything. That’s the way the Iron talks to you. It tells you that the material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. That which you work against will always work against you.
It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can’t be as bad as that workout.
I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you’re not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control.
I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have self-respect. I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone’s shoulders instead of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. It is the difference between bouncers who get off strong-arming people and Mr. Pepperman.
Muscle mass does not always equal strength. Strength is kindness and sensitivity. Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart.
Yukio Mishima said that he could not entertain the idea of romance if he was not strong. Romance is such a strong and overwhelming passion, a weakened body cannot sustain it for long. I have some of my most romantic thoughts when I am with the Iron. Once I was in love with a woman. I thought about her the most when the pain from a workout was racing through my body. Everything in me wanted her. So much so that sex was only a fraction of my total desire. It was the single most intense love I have ever felt, but she lived far away and I didn’t see her very often. Working out was a healthy way of dealing with the loneliness. To this day, when I work out I usually listen to ballads.
I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me. Learning about what you’re made of is always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron had taught me how to live.
Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They are no longer whole. I see them move from their offices to their cars and on to their suburban homes. They stress out constantly, they lose sleep, they eat badly. And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke. They need the Iron mind.
Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind. The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.
The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs.
Friends may come and go.
But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.
Iron and The Soul – Henry Rollins – originally written for Details Magazine
In this time of turmoil where people seem to be losing their minds around you, who and what are you anchoring yourself to?
Do you need to re-evaluate your anchors and what you’re tying yourself to?
There are times when someone walks through your front door and your life is never the same after that point. As much as Mark wants to say walking through our front door all of those years ago for a church small group set him on a course that would ultimately change him, I would have to say that change has been completely mutual. Anyone who knows Mark can tell you he’s not satisfied with not impacting you in a positive way. For this FollowFriday post I want to highlight a good friend of mine. I have gotten to watch Mark and his wife Adena affect so many people in a positive way that I would be stupid not to point people towards him.
In the last couple years, I have watched Mark launch his family and life coaching business as he seeks to help others live their best life. I am ALWAYS skeptical of anyone who claims to be an expert and wants to lead others and I think that’s the biblical approach to take.
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
James 3:1 ESV
However, I have seen the 3 fantastic human beings that Mark & Adena have raised and watched the marriage they have built blossom and grow after they’ve been married over 20 years and would say they’ve earned the title of expert. As I’ve participated in workshops with Mark & Adena and listened to what they’ve taught on family and parenting what has impressed me most and what I think sets them apart is how they truly get to the root of issues that folks deal with in their marriage and families to a level I have yet to see anywhere else. I can wholeheartedly recommend Mark as someone I turn to when I have questions about marriage and parenting and would encourage you to do so also.
When I started JeffMilesSays.com, I built it on the 5 pillars of Faith, Family, Fitness, Fun, & Functions. I have stated in previous posts that my faith underlies everything I do and is the bedrock for all decisions and the way I live my life. I have been asked on several occasions how I can remain so calm and when appropriate I will share how my faith enables me to do so, but I still have moments of anxiety where I have to take a moment and steady myself (last Friday was a perfect example, there were so many things going on that I needed to deal with, at one moment on Friday morning, I just had to take a moment to steady myself with a little meditation on scripture before I could move on).
I have several friends and colleagues that struggle with anxiety some to the point where they are seeing counselors and some are on medication for it. As I listened to Ethan Vanse from our Broken Arrow church preach Part 2 of our Over It series (click here for part 1) I thought immediately of my friends who struggle with anxiety because it is the most compassionate, biblical explanation of how to deal with anxiety and the root issue of why we struggle with it. To be clear, medication and counseling have their place but watch the video below to see our service from this past weekend including Ethan’s sermon as well as one of our staff members sharing her struggle with anxiety. Normally, you can find the sermon notes on cotm.info but at some point they will switch over to the current sermon so I have saved off a pdf version here.
If you would like to skip directly to the sermon, you can do so by clicking here.
The badge on my phone for the Pocket app currently sits at 5,132; I mentioned in my post earlier this week that I had a goal to process or read every single article I had saved to Pocket by the end of the year. I started at 5,412 and I’m on track to get through the list by the end of the year at my current pace (you know I would be tracking progress right 😁). What was interesting to me, was as I looked through my list of things I had saved, it reminded me partially of why that number was so high. At one point, I had gone through every single post on the Wait but Why website and saved every single article to Pocket.
I first heard about Wait but Why several years ago and was instantly intrigued. I like thinking deeply and Tim Urban does a great job of really digging into a subject and creating very thoughtful posts. One of the ones that has recently really made me think is a post titled The Tail End. I strongly encourage you to spend some time on the Wait but Why website and think deeply. It is one of the few websites I have an email subscription to and would strongly encourage my readers to follow suit.
I don’t know who the originator of the image above is but when I saw Will Smith post it to his Instagram I thought it perfectly captured how 2021 has started.
I intentionally held off on any sort of 2020 lookback post due to a sneaking suspicion that 2020 wasn’t going to ride quietly off into the sunset. As I suspected, folks are already giving 2021 the side-eye due to the events of last week and asking if the return policy is still valid.
Looking back at 2020…
There are a couple of ways for me to look back at 2020. First, if I look at the numbers from a goals perspective I did really well on some goals, but not as well on others. From a weight perspective, I started the year strong, faltered a little mid-year as the stress of the pandemic and managing two major projects with a team completely remotely took hold, then started getting it back together as you can see from the graph below. Overall, I lost 18 pounds, so not quite what I wanted, but still a partial win in my book.
From a mental standpoint, I have had a goal to continue learning Spanish & German and I did ok on that goal, definitely something to focus more on in 2021.
Also on the mental front, due to my discovery and a new love for audiobooks, I blew my “reading” goal out of the water (by 15 books).
On the less tangible/measurable/soft-skills front, there was A LOT of growth in 2020. Navigating the pandemic with kids starting the pivot-to-home strategy of online learning (and being quarantined an additional 2 times) while my team delivered on two major capital projects at work while completely remote (Gray Oak & Sweeny Hub Expansion – my team is completely responsible for the back office systems related to our pipelines and terminals) was a major growth time for me personally. 2020 was also a big year for me in terms of growth in empathy & vulnerability. The near-constant need to be keeping my finger on the pulse of my team’s emotional, mental, and physical health stretched me in ways I could never have imagined before 2020, stretching that I am extremely grateful for because it made me an even better leader.
On the family front, each year except for a few years after Michael passed away, Mandy has created photo books to document what the Miles family did each year. This year, she determined that we were going to have a 2020 book done in time for Christmas. As she reviewed the book for the year she commented that our motto for 2020 must have been, “I’m so quarantined I’m going to be intentional.” Since we weren’t allowed to go and be around people, we went to the great outdoors, so much so that if you look at all of the pictures, it’s hard to believe we were actually quarantined. We did a great job getting out and exploring as a family. Here’s a picture from our trip to North Carolina where we went and hiked to find a waterfall (no masks because there were no people around 😁).
Social Upheaval…
2020 was a very hard year and it wouldn’t be fair to talk about 2020 without mentioning the social upheaval that happened in 2020. I’m currently reading Atomic Habits by James Clear and it had a section that had I read it at any other point in time it would probably not have hit me quite as hard. He’s talking about how habits can either compound for you or against you.
Outrage compounds. Riots, protests, and mass movements are rarely the result of a single event. Instead, a long series of microaggressions and daily aggravations slowly multiply until one event tips the scales and outrage spreads like wildfire.
On June 1st, 2020, I wrote a post titled We make better music together… and I stand by everything I wrote in that post. The sad thing is that we are even more divided now than we were then, largely in part in my mind due to the backfire effect. The theme of diversity and inclusion has taken front and center stage as we roll into 2021 and I fully intend on writing about my thoughts in D&I very soon. In Jesse Andersen’s Listening Session episode with Brie Davis on The Art of Understanding podcast, Brie mentioned that due to the pandemic we didn’t have anything else to do so when the atrocities against Ahmad Arbury, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd were committed, the world could do nothing but watch and respond. My immediate response was to become very reflective on my behavior and I immediately reached out to the folks who had previously been on my team as well as the folks currently on my team to check on them as well as ask the very probing question, “Did I ever do anything as your supervisor that was racist?” I asked the same question of my current female employees replacing “racist” with “misogynistic”. If 2020 taught me anything as a leader and human being it was to be extremely vulnerable with others as well as very self-reflective and ensure there were no planks in my own eye.
Looking forward to 2021…
The subject line of one of my email newsletters as 2021 rolled around…
As I look forward to 2021, there’s nothing intrinsic to 2021 that is going to make it any different than 2020. I had a really hard time keeping my mouth shut when people would say they couldn’t wait till 2020 was over. I know from a mental standpoint, there’s a natural mental break between 2021, but we’re the folks that got ourselves into the 2020 mess and we’re the ones that in 2021, with God’s help, will have to get ourselves out of this mess.
From a pure numbers standpoint, I have a goal to lose weight and get down to and maintain at 280 pounds, read/listen to 50 books, get 2 Duolingo Spanish & German lessons under my belt for at least 292 of the 365 days this year (80%), and get through the entire list of 5,412 articles saved to Pocket (either by reading the article or deciding that I don’t really need to read it anymore because the moment has passed) as well as make major strides on an application I want to write once I am finished getting my blog healthy again and am blogging regularly.
On the less tangible side, my goals are to be a better leader, helping others navigate the cycles of grief, and find meaning, that they’re inevitably going to be going through this year (Brené Brown had a great podcast interview with David Kessler that I need to brush up on and I recommend you listen to as well where David explores the 6th stage of grief). I also plan to share quite a bit on my blog. The impetus for me restarting/refocusing on my blog was through my 40+ years on this rock I have learned A LOT of lessons the hard way and gained a lot of perspectives and I have felt a need to share those lessons with others as a way to give back.
Finally, my goal is to continue to Love, Lead, & Build.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
John 13:35 (NIV)
If there’s any way I can help you, please connect with me and reach out. I really want 2021 to be a year where I continue to invest in others and build others up.
