Day 3,065

Growth:

Always remember to soak in the views with my eyes and not through the lens of a camera. One stays true in the brain, the other is nice but can be faulty… like when the white balance goes bonkers for some reason and you don’t notice it until after you’ve recorded a bunch of sweet video that is now blue and is unlikely fixable. 😉

Soak it in fresh in the moment, savor it, and enjoy it. Afterwards, get some pics and video if possible – but remember that those are secondary to the experience itself.

Appreciation:

Over the past few days we’ve done a lot of hiking, a lot of chilling, and a lot of sleeping. Throw in a lot of talking, a lot of planning, and a lot of dreaming and it’s been an epic long weekend vacation for Becky and I. So glad we took time to hit the pause button on life to dive into the activities we thoroughly enjoy sharing with each other!

Presence:

Another wonderful day of hiking in Arizona! What really threw me for a loop was summiting a mountain in the snow in the desert, I was totally not expecting that today!

The hike up was spectacular, the views of the surrounding mountains were stunning, and hiking in snow AND cactuses was pretty trippy!

Thanks!!!

Day 3,064

Growth:

I’m so thankful for all the work I’ve put in with lifting over the past few months, especially with my legs. After knocking out a few longer hikes on very rocky, uneven, and steep surfaces I noticed something was missing today…. I have ZERO knee swelling. I have ZERO soreness in my knees.

As recently as this past summer the down hills and rocky surfaces would especially irritate my right knee. It would inflate by the end of the hike and be stiff for quite a while.

All the additional leg lifts and workouts have obviously had a hugely positive impact on my ability to hike – so thankful!!!!

Pretty sure this dude will never skip leg day again!

Appreciation:

While hiking there have been so many joyful shared travel memories brought to mind. Sometimes it takes being away from “the usual” to allow the space for those memories to sneak back into our view. We’ve shared some wonderful stories, remembered places and specific hikes we’ve been on before, laughed at some of the antics of the boys, and considered how much we would kick our younger-selves asses with the hiking shape we’re in today compared to 20+ years ago. So many shared experiences on the trails, brought back about on the trails, and remembered specifically because of the trails.

Presence:

A state of complete and total chill all day long. For real, today has been about the most absolutely chill day I’ve had in a long time. At one point I was splayed out on the sun baked pavers of the patio in just my shorts soaking in the sun like a cat while listening to an audio book with my eyes closed. It was amazing!!! This entire day has been a reminder of the necessity of calm and stillness to recharge the batteries for adventures and life to come!

Thanks!!!

Day 3,063

Growth:

So much easier to step away from work on a vacation after deleting my email application! One simple action has already helped me be more present.

Appreciation:

The majority of the day was spent hiking, outside, in the sun, and taking in new sights in the wild – some of my favorite things! What do I appreciate more than those? Sharing them all with some whose passion for them is right there with mine! So thankful for sharing my life and experiences with Becky! If this is what our retired life will be like, bring it on!!!

Presence:

While there were so many wonderful moments today one that really sticks out to me is when Becky and I were in the hot tub and enjoyed five minutes of shared silence. While she meditated I stared up at the stars above and just let my mind go. It was so profoundly chill to just savor the sight of the stars, take in their dichotomy of their truly immense size and the tiny glitter they appear to be from so far away. So blessed to taken in those moments of stillness!

Thanks!!!

Day 3,062

Growth:

When traveling I find it so much easier to chill, stay calm, and be totally okay with not being in control of anything outside of the attitude I choose.

I don’t manage the airport, I don’t fly the plane, and I don’t decide how the people around me on the flight act. All I can control is my choice of attitude.

Usually this lack of control leaves me twitching and anxious. When traveling I seem to find a way to flip the switch and go into chill mode. I need to harness this mindset shift more often!

Appreciation:

Flights are such a magical opportunity to have some forced downtime. My options for activities are very much limited.

Today I spent much of the first flight (& the bonus downtime which showed itself as de-icing, a broken de-icing truck, a new de-icing truck, and more de-icing) consolidating all of my favorite passages and notes from New Seeds of Contemplation. Going through my notes to create a short document for each book I read has been something I’ve found huge value in this year, but it always takes a little bit of time to complete. The first flight was almost exactly what I needed to get that done, perfect timing of the forced downtime of the flight! Rather than going completely mindless I was able to create value from that time.

On my next flight I finished reading See You Tomorrow, a deeply moving nonfiction about a young man who disappeared attempting to snowboard Mount Everest. Dominic referred it to me and I’ve been knocking out a handful of pages each night before sleeping. Today I was able to take in the last 2/3’s of it and I enjoyed it immensely. Such a better use of my time than playing a game or watching a movie.

Cheers to using the forced downtime in a positive way!

Presence:

After finishing my notes from New Seeds of Contemplation I put in my AirPods and proceeded to have a wonderfully chill musical meditation. It was awesome!

When Becky and I got to Phoenix she found an incredible restaurant for us to hit for a late lunch. We were both starving, feeling a little wore out from the flights, and that really hit the spot. Nice having excellent conversation with the two of us on vacation and enjoying a delicious meal together!

Thanks!!!

Day 3,061

Growth:

Sometimes we need to think way back to what has worked in the past. Coupled with my in the moment coaching discussed yesterday I was reminded of how powerful it is hearing our on voice on sales calls. As such the recorder was on and helped me work with another teammate today. Very useful!

Appreciation:

With Dominic in college we’ve gotten into an awesome rhythm. We FaceTime each Wednesday and Sunday night to catch up. It has quickly become something I look forward to! Spending time with Dominic while he’s afar has helped us keep up our relationship and updated on all the fun stuff he has been up to. So glad we’ve gotten into this rhythm!

Presence:

This sunrise…. Wowza!!!

So glad I did the right thing and pulled over to enjoy it!

Thanks!!!

Day 3,060

Growth:

When an opportunity to coach in the moment happens, be sure to take it. Nothing quite like something happening real time to help with training! Sure, it is off the cuff and a bit unscripted, but it can be so much more useful when there are real life examples fresh in the memory to work from.

Appreciation:

The pre-vacation jitters are starting to kick in! Nothing like getting everything organized, packed, and ready to get into the vacation mindset early. It is definitely coming at the right time, bring on the travel! Still got a couple days to wait, but nice to see it coming closer and closer.

Presence:

This afternoon’s drive was an awesome one! From Nelson to French Island there were so many bald eagles seemingly everywhere in the Mississippi River Valley. At one backwater there were at least a dozen eagles either on the ice on the water or in the trees, it was wild! Yet another reminder of why I love living in the Driftless.

Thanks!!!

Day 3,059

Alright, here goes nothing. We are going to try recording my blog via voice recording again. Should be interesting. 😉

Growth.

What I’m most thankful for today from a growth standpoint is the acceptance of the fact that I need rest. I am exhausted. I am worn out. It has been a wild couple of weeks. One of the things I track every night is how much sleep I got the previous day. I’m usually in a beautiful zone of seven to eight hours of sleep per night.

Over the past six nights, it’s been less than seven, which is a huge red flag for me. I am definitely feeling it.

It’s been well worth it. I’ve been staying up late to do things with Gavin. Still waking up early to get my workout in with Becky.

And it just seems like it’s always so worth it. It’s so much easier to sacrifice a little bit of sleep knowing that there’s something else I could be doing, a different project to work on, some fitness to get in, some of those types of things.

At this point though, it’s sleepy time for me.

What I’m most thankful for is the fact that I’m realizing that I need some rest tonight. I’m going to sleep like a champ, and that’s okay. I skipped my workout over lunch today, just to give myself a little bit of extra rest. I’m getting my blog done early, and I plan on being in bed immediately following yoga tonight.

It’s not a good thing to be tired all the time, and it’s a good thing to know when it’s time to get caught back up. Here’s to some great sleep this evening.

Appreciation.

I’ve started reading Thomas Merton’s, The New Seeds of Contemplation, for, I believe,the fifth or sixth time, and every time, it just leaves me feeling completely uncomfortable in a wonderful way. While I’ve read it a handful of times, there’s certain concepts that just need to be revisited over and over again in order to try to fit. There are other concepts that I just wasn’t ready for in the previous reads, that now I’m picking up on, and I hear, and they cause me to want to change and to grow, and there’s still so many times when the words of advice and wisdom that Merton is sharing cause me to feel very uncomfortable, because it challenges me, it challenges my mindset, it pushes me out of my comfort zone that I like to kind of turtle up in sometimes, of being able to

have some quiet and some solitude, when really, the right thing to do is to spend time with people, to push myself past that discomfort of spending time with people, and to be with others. And that’s one of the big things that I’m taking away from this time through the book.

I am really glad that I’m okay with re-reading a book that makes me feel so uncomfortable. It’s difficult, there have been a lot of moments when I’ve paused and rewound and thought through and just sat in silence to take in, but it’s all helpful because I can feel that in that discomfort is growth. I’ve still got a long ways to go, I have a feeling I’ve got dozens more times to read this book before it finally, truly starts to fit and to maybe feel right, but for the time being, I’m embracing the discomfort and just leaning right into it.

Presence.

My moment of presence this morning was the moment my alarm went off and I knew I had to get out of bed. I was exhausted, I was half asleep, but I knew it was time to get up. Every ounce of my body and my head wanted to go back to sleep, but I had to run to get in.

I am so glad that I made the decision to get up and run, I am so glad that I had the fun that I had last night hanging out with Gavin watching the Super Bowl, but I’m really also glad for the sleep I’m going to get tonight as I talked about earlier. That moment reminded me and was essentially what kick-started my mindset of realizing

I need to get some sleep tonight and start to get caught back up.

Here’s to that moment of waking up when we really don’t want to, but we know it’s the right thing to do.

Thanks!!!

Day 3,058

Growth:

While driving up north with Becky today I was listening to one of my favorite books, The New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton. Even though I’ve read it a few times I was still picking up some deep insights on this read through. From time to time I had to pause the book, turn on some fitting music, and then let my mind mull over the points made in the book.

There was a beautiful balance of quiet, reading, music, and stillness on the drive this morning. Very peaceful and wonderful way to kick off the day!

Appreciation:

One of the key insights from reading this morning may seem rather simple, but there’s definitely a complexity to it in practice. It seems as if the moments of greatest joy are those in which we are living into the person we are called to be and the moments of frustration are when we are going against the grain. Live into our true selves and joy is plentiful, live into a non-authentic self and feel unfulfilled.

This insight has been in my head all day and I’m grateful for this seed of wisdom which continue to blossom.

Presence:

Today I took some time to knock out a handful of projects. One of which was writing up a shout out for someone who has had an awesomely positive impact on others. Taking the time to write that was very engaging and was a moment of extreme presence.

Thanks!!!

Day 3,057

I’m breaking from the usual format tonight. It has been a very full day, and definitely a +2 day (at the end of each day I rate my overall joy from the day on s scale of -2 to +2). Here are a handful of reasons it was a +2 day (& the notes I’ll add in my daily journal):

• Woke up at 5am on a Saturday specifically to get a solid workout in
• Knocked out almost 400 floors on the stair machine in just under two hours
• Love, love, love reading Speaker for the Dead while exercising. So many insightful ideas
• Broke up Gavin’s powerlifting meet by hiking in the bluffs with Becky in between events
• Saw Gavin achieve all of his powerlifting goals from this season
• Enjoyed conversation with great parent friends
• Chilling out and eating pizza while laughing with family as we wrapped up the night.
• Hearing Dominic had an excellent rugby match

An awesome day all around!!!

Thanks!!!

Day 3,056

Growth:

It’s okay to create a short & concise blog post. Success isn’t measured in number of words. There is no one to impress. There is only the process, living into purpose. Don’t create something unnecessary due to external expectations you are actually putting onto yourself. Be authentic.

Appreciation:

Today I took action towards closing the gap between who I am and who I am called to be. It felt so wonderfully right! An idea which has been growing like a bamboo seed for quite some time appears to be just about ready to explode from the ground. Is there a better feeling than living into one’s purpose?

Presence:

Wow, the moment of typing up my Growth section tonight! That was not at all where I expected to go. I was aware of my mindset / inner monologue…

“ugh, I want to keep this short because I’m tired, but then I need to write a disclaimer about why this post is going to be short.”

My awareness of my thought process helped me quickly see just how stupid and ego driven I was acting. First off, who am I writing this for – others or myself? Second, who cares how long the post is? Third, why would I care about someone’s opinion of what I type? Last, why am I not focused on the single most important reason I utilize this practice daily – its intent, its purpose?

In that moment my true self started typing, I allowed “me” to come out and be truly present. That might be one of my favorite paragraphs yet!

Thanks!