Day 3,042

Growth:

More timely advice from Greg McKeown’s Essentialism on the power of perspective. When facing a situation in which I must choose something over something else, which mindset do I utilize?

“What do I have to give up?”

or

“What do I want to go big on?”

Hey Future Mike, do yourself a favor. Always choose the latter.

Appreciation:

I’ve gone back and forth on this section today. There are some directions I almost went including my workout, team successes, working through difficulty the right way, spending time with business colleagues turned friends, and future leaders. All were worthy, but I think what I am most thankful for is the confluence of several ideas and trainings and lessons. 

At a certain point today I felt very overwhelmed. Normally, I would react in a handful of ways like taking immediate action, letting my emotions get the best of me, or move on to something completely different until I calmed down. Today I took a deep breath, used my five minute hourglass and watched the grains slowly drop, and then spent time doing nothing but thinking deeply on the issue at hand. I took it apart and broke it down. I looked at it from many different angles. I tested some potential options. I considered how this was best handled. I focused exclusively on this challenge. While this happened I had phone calls, emails, and messages piling up. I ignored them and held the line until I was ready to move on after I’d had time to walk through it.

This is not my default reaction, but it felt as natural as if it were. In that moment I paused to appreciate just how much I’ve grown over the past year. Simultaneously, it was very similar to earlier in the week when I got my most recent fitness results. The successes and growth propel me to work still harder to improve further. If this much work helped me grow by this much, how much more growth is possible if I dig deep and push further? I’m excited to find out!

Here’s to the successes we have that become a springboard for future larger successes… especially when they come as we work through challenges. We always have a choice to make. Do we choose to focus on the challenge itself or do we focus on the growth attained specifically due to the opportunity?

Presence:

This evening was the Winona Chamber of Commerce’s annual banquet. My buddy Mike and I were the dessert auctioneers and had the honor of helping local businesses pay large sums of money for desserts with all the proceeds going to help a Chamber program focused on helping students get real life work experience and training. By the time the dust settled local businesses contributed over $11,000 towards the program.

Throughout the fifteen minutes or so we had an absolute blast, so many laughs and smiles! Helping to brighten lives while brightening lives through that shared experience was epic. 100% flow state the entire time for sure, felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be in that moment – physically and mentally.

Thanks!!!