My Monday mornings have included a standing appointment for several years now.  At 9am each Monday I have a call with one of my mentors & business partners, Norm.  The original purpose fo the call still holds.  This call is an opportunity for me to pause, think about everything going on in business, and then determine my most important projects to focus on for the week.

One of the things I appreciate the most about this time is the ability to walk through my thought processes out loud.  Funny how ideas sound one way when they’re in my head and a completely different way when they’re said aloud.  Norm does an excellent job of letting me walk through the thought completely and then bounces great idea, questions, and counterpoints back off of me to help me round out the thought.  By the time we’re wrapping up I’ve had the opportunity to think through the concept from a few different angles, go down a few seemingly different yet still related paths, and then re-focus for the week.

As we had our call today we had one of those moments when things were clicking well and his responses led me down a few different trains of thought than I was expecting.  While I was feverishly jotting down notes to retain I realized that there is another reason why I enjoy blogging so much.  In some ways writing a blog is very similar to thinking out loud.  When I start typing I have a general idea or two in my head.  Thinking as I type helps me get the thought out completely without overthinking and I often end up going in a slightly different direction than when I started.  The act of writing helps me flesh out the thought and see it differently.  Having the written thought process afterwards is a wonderful resource for me to review further down the road.  My blog post from yesterday about failing was a great example of that.  Blogging daily provides the opportunity for me to think out loud on my own without anyone listening, yet while allowing others to listen in and offer advice and ideas… and it’s saved for me to go back to when I need it. It’s a little gift I’m giving myself both now and in the future.

Thanks!!!

I know there’s a pretty significant chance someone slaps me for this one, but I am thankful for the rainy Sunday we’ve had so far. The weather we’ve had recently has been pretty outstanding and there’s been a lot of sun. One day of gloomy, overcast skies and continual rain is very peaceful and was an excellent reminder for me to slow down and relax. Everything seems a little more chill today. The change in lighting is beautiful as well. The purple blooming lilacs in our neighbor’s backyard really pop against the steel gray sky. The grass seems even more green than normal. The lighting has been soothing. Today I’m just soaking in the feeling of the rainy day and enjoying the sweatshirt weather.

What a perfect day to spend some time up in my workshop! While I was up there Dominic finished the last flower box for the deck for Becky while Gavin and I made a sled for my table saw. Each of us were focused on the task at hand while occasionally talking or asking each other for tools. The time up there creating was fantastic as always.

After a while the boys had other things to do so I was up there on my own. There’s a project I am working on for some of my friends and I got to work on the next step of it. I had a specific plan in mind but opted to change part of the execution of it to both look nicer and add strength to it. In order for me to do this I had to build a box joint jig, something I’ve never done before. I was both excited to try it and nervous as I figured it would be a little tough to learn.

As I put the jig together and started making adjustments I had failure after failure after failure. The saw blade was too high. The pin was the wrong size. I started cutting the board in the wrong place. The pin was too far left. The pin was too far right. The pin was too far left again. Trial and error, trial and error, over and over again. The funny thing is that I’d often get frustrated at this. Sometimes I’ll get frustrated to the point of swearing. Other times I’ll get discouraged and switch to something different for a while. Today I was totally chill and even smiling while failing.

Each time I made a mistake I thought to myself, “One failure closer to success.” I would make a mistake and that mantra would go through my head, over and over again. One failure closer to success. One failure closer to success. I knew I would ultimately be successful at it, I would persist until I had completed the task. I was open minded to trying new things, I was confident in may ability to learn, and I knew each failure was teaching me something. One failure closer to success…

After a pile of failures guess what happened? I figured it out! It was kind of funny, while I was happy to have success I immediately moved on to the next challenge. After a while I realized that I hadn’t really paused to celebrate the hard fought success and I started wondering why. That’s when it hit me – I always knew I would be successful at it, it was only a matter of time. I knew resilience and growth mindset would win out, each failure was a lesson to help me grow, and I would be successful eventually. No need to get pumped and excited, it was all part of the process.

This project is going to stick with me for a while. The next times I run into a challenge I’m going to remind myself of this project and how I attacked it. I’m going to remember the mindset I chose while learning the new task and will remember that each failure is one step closer to success. Today I’m so thankful for the excellent reminder of each failure moving me one step closer to success – as long as I choose the right attitude. Confidence, willingness to learn from mistakes, resilience, growth mindset, and flexibility.

Thanks!!!

There were a handful for more deep and profound thoughts I was going to write about tonight. Lessons remembered on decision making, purpose, and role models. I might write about the in the future, but as I sit here on the couch and blog I’m still smiling wide after playing Horse with Gavin.

Funny how sometimes life gets so complex and confusing, or at least that’s how I make it. Stressing about things out of my control, taking on too many challenges at once, spreading my attention to thin, and so on. I so easily let it turn into a go, go, go mindset and next thing I know I’ve spent several days of the little precious time I have in a rush and blur of activity. Not only that, but once I accomplish something I want to accomplish something bigger.

Tonight Becky was online with her friends talking and Dominic hopped online with his buddies to play some games. I asked Gavin what he wanted to do and he wanted to shoot some hoops. Outside we went on a perfect May evening in La Crosse. At the end of our driveway we goofed around, played some basketball, and had an awesome time hanging out. As I kept smiling to myself after we played I realized some of the reason why I enjoyed it so much. I was hanging out with one of my favorite people in the world. We were outside and not distracted by anything except occasionally noticing just how perfectly clear the sky was and how perfectly we could view the bluffs in Holmen from our house. It was the two of us, no devices or phones, just us hanging out spending time together. It was a simple game to play and we were both 100% present in it. Our time together was simple, fun, and memorable in its perfectness.

All the big thoughts and ideas will have their day some other time. Tonight I’m thankful for playing Horse with Gavin and enjoying some of the simple things in life.

Thanks!!!

Hmm…  Speaking of nudges last night it seemed like I needed a nudge in a different direction.  Today there were several humbling moments throughout the day that caused me to pause and re-evaluate just how big the gap is between who I am and who I should be.  Some of them were rather humorous, some were very petty but indicators of other things and others were reminders of skills I need to take more time to hone.

One in particular reminded me of how I need to either let things go or help fix the problem.  During our nighty family walk after supper (a tradition during COVID times that I’ve become very fond of) I got all bent out of shape because we passed several people who were walking on the wrong side of the road.  When walking or running pedestrians are supposed to be on the left side of the road instead of the normal right side.  For some reason the simple act of others walking on the wrong side drove me BONKERS!!!  How silly is that?  For reals, there was no impact to me other than walking out of my path to go around them.  Also, I didn’t take the time to explain the right answer, I just complained and got irritated.  I didn’t let it go, I didn’t help to fix the situation, and I didn’t take time to just be thankful for so many people being outside getting exercise and smiling and waving as they passed.

Moments like that were around me often.  For clarity, they didn’t all revolve around frustration.  Some were a lack of action.  Others were a lack of discipline.  In others I was trying to control something I couldn’t control.  The biggest ones mainly involved me thinking a little too highly of myself and letting my ego get in the way.  Here’s the deal though, I am so grateful for those humbling moments.  They remind me of the work I have to do on myself while also reminding me that I’m making progress.

I’ve been listening to the book that inspired one of my favorite movies and my mind has been blown.  Fight Club is a movie I fire up at least once every couple of years.  I find it very entertaining and some of the thought processes in it leave me thinking (in a positive way, not the crazed chaos that is the second half of the movie).  I didn’t even realize there was a book about it until a content creator I enjoy said something about it.  I’m so glad I fired the book up, it’s been amazing!!!  If I thought the movie was great, the book is a couple of steps above it for many reasons.

This is one of those awesome times when the book is so much better than the movie.  For clarity, I know a lot of crappy movies from great books, but I mean books that are better than their already great movies.  In addition to Fight Club the other one that I think back to is The Godfather.  If you’ve enjoyed the movie but never read the book you’ve got to check out the book.  Incredible.  Flat out incredible.

Ahh…  always nice to go in with high expectations and find something even greater!

Thanks!!!

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a blog about being thankful paying attention to nudges.

https://thankful4forty.com/2019/05/09/day-953-thankful-for-paying-attention-to-the-nudges-the-universe-provides/

Just last month I wrote this blog post about more nudges.

https://thankful4forty.com/2020/04/21/day-1301-thankful-for-additional-nudges-from-the-big-dude-upstairs/

When I have spent time thinking about my blog tonight I kept going back to a handful of interesting coincidences from the past week or so.  There are many things I am thankful for today (including just happening to set my dentist appointment for two days after they re-opened) and I realized that they almost all shared one common bond…  they were all nudges.

Some of what’s happened includes the following:

• A conversation with a friend reminding me of the importance of gratitude
• A book review reminding the power of purpose
• A conversation with my team reminding me of the impact one person can have
• Multiple conversations relating to the importance of having role models to help us shape our behavior
• A reminder of a story from a friend showing the power of positively impacting even just one person
• A completely blown sales call that reminded me of what happens when I go against purpose
• A handful of highly successful calls reminding me of what happens when I go with purpose
• A unique opportunity to help someone specifically because it is the right thing to do
• Seemingly random inspirational quotes all pointing in the same direction
• Many reminders of how gratitude can increase the amount of joy in the world
• and a few others which I’ll keep to myself for the time being

As I keep thinking through how all of them tie together I can’t help but notice that all of them keep nudging me down certain paths.  When I focus on certain things and directions I see how they fit.  When I go against the grain of them I find myself either struggling with internal conflict or a lack of passion and purpose.

While I still don’t quite have it figured out on how it all fits I’m certainly seeing that I’m walking on the right path.  Where does it go?  Who knows, and I’m okay with the idea of never quite knowing.  What keeps me moving is that I can tell that I’m making progress and moving forward.  Sometimes I seem to stray off the path, today I’m thankful for additional nudges that help guide my feet back to where they belong.

Thanks!!!

After our walk tonight the boys and I headed up to the workshop.  Dominic was focused on putting together the second deck box for Becky and it was great seeing him utilize the skills he’d learned from building the first one with me last week.  Gavin was helping me with a project I’m taking on.  In the process I taught him safe table saw usage, how to use a feather board, how to rip boards to size, and using a planer.  Throw in a couple of opportunities to test his shop math and it was great time.

I’m sure I’ve been thankful for workshop time with the boys at least a couple of times in the past, but I have to write about it again.  Spending time with them doing something I love, something that Dad loved, and something my Grandpas loved is fantastic.  Throughout the time together I’m often caught in a very amazing nexus of being present with my boys and at the same time remembering wonderful times with Dad.  It doesn’t get much better than that!

Earlier today I heard a sound I hadn’t heard for a while, the buzzing of a fly in my office. At first I started to ignore it, but then I heard a second one.  After a quick moment of thought I realized I needed to take a few minutes and fix the problem.  Within a couple of quick (and frustrating) minutes the problem was solved and I was able to get right back to work without distraction.  And then I chuckled to myself as an idea came to mind…

This morning I got frustrated with a minor issue that’s been bugging me for well over six weeks.  Each week it’s a little pain – nothing evenly remotely serious – but it causes me to have to pause everything for a short period of time and get back to work.  I’ve known the fix for quite some time and I just hadn’t taken the time to do it because I always planned on doing it later.  The fix would take just slightly longer than the work around so I kept setting it aside.  Today I finally took care of it.  Which brings me back to the two dead flies…

There I stood chuckling to myself (and at myself).  How foolish that I didn’t take time to get fix of the annoyance right away, but I figured out I was better off just taking the flies out right away?  How often do I skip fixing something that is relatively easy to correct and yet I fix something that is slightly more annoying immediately?  This was definitely a great learning experience from a very mundane task.  To the two dead flies in my workshop, I salute you and thank you for your annoyance and lessons taught.

Thanks!!!

Last week I was having a conversation with a friend and they asked me an interesting question.  I may have been asked questions like it before, but not quite in this fashion (at least that I can remember).  Ever since she asked it my brain has been letting it ferment a bit as it provides a very interesting thought process.

“Do you choose what you’re thankful for at the beginning of the day and focus on that throughout the day?  Are you being intentional in your gratitude?”

My initial response was a quick no.  Each day when I write my blog I usually write it at the end of the day after I’ve had the opportunity to experience the day and put it all into some sort of perspective.  As I thought about it I realized that there are many days I kind of choose what I’m thankful for early in the day and then my mindset stays focused on that train of thought throughout the day.  So maybe, but not really?  The interesting point about the question that was asked was the difference between what I’d call intentional, experiential, and transcendent gratitude.

Intentional gratitude would be when I choose to be thankful for something specific.  I focus on it, dig into why I am thankful for it, and I am then grateful for it.  While my initial response to her question was “no” I realized that there are definitely times in I chose to be grateful for something or someone because of the specific; ie Mother’s Day, birthdays, anniversaries, etc…  In those scenarios my mindset of gratitude is different.  It causes me to intentionally dig which often provides a different level of thankfulness.

Experiential gratitude is when I see, hear, smell, touch or taste something that causes me to pause and be grateful for the experience.  Seeing a spectacular sunrise or the beautiful fresh green leaves on the bluffs over the Mississippi River cause me to pause and be thankful for what is all around me.  In those moments I am thankful for something because I have experienced it and that moment has reminded me to pause and be grateful for the experience.

Somewhere on a different level is what I would deem transcendent gratitude, though I would be very open to another name for it as this was the first one off the top of my head.  This gratitude in some ways is amongst the most meaningful to me as it helps me absorb life and its lessons in a very different way.  Examples of this are like a couple of weeks ago when I fell while running.  As I got back up I saw how the spill I’d just taken was a metaphor for running into challenges and obstacles in life.  When I spent time finding a reason to be grateful for the fall and thinking about what I could learn from it I was able to find gratitude that transcended the event itself.  When I focused on being thankful for the event I found a deeper meaning that made me significantly more grateful than I would have been without taking the time to focus on gratitude.  Transcendent gratitude seems to be derived from either experiential or intentional gratitude.  In many cases when it is achieved it seems to be the most powerful form of gratitude for me.

What do you think?  Is there a different form of gratitude that I missed?  Would you explain it in a different way?  Please shoot any ideas and thoughts out there, I’d appreciate more to think on related to this topic.

Long story short, today I am very thankful for my friend asking me a question that has my brain thinking more deeply on the topic of gratitude.  Funny how sometimes all it takes is one slightly different question to help our brains grow?

Thanks!!!

First off, how could I not be thankful for moms today?  Let’s face it, they are the super heroes living amongst us.  From personal experience they are the people who are always busting their butts to keep live running soothly for all of us.  They take care of us out of love, care for us in ways that no one else could, and will always accept us in spite of any of our faults.  Their the first ones to support us, give us a hug when we need it, and are always there for us when we need them.  How they find a way to get everything done and still make a little room for themselves is nothing short of magic.

Whether you’re a mom, a dog mom, a work mom, a foster mom, a safety mom, a second mom, a step mom, or some other form of mom I may be forgetting – let me offer my sincerest gratitude for all that you do; all the happiness and joy you bring to our lives, all times you help save us from mistakes, all the times you hug us and put bandaids on after we didn’t take your advice, and, most importantly, for all of the love you provide us.  Happy Mother’s Day!

There is something else I’m thankful for today and it’s been rolling around in the back of my head since I heard it this morning.  Someone explained that the current COVID-19 crisis was leaving him feeling a lot like a Jenga tower.  So many blocks of his life have been pulled out and additional pressure and stress has been added to the top.  If you’ve played Jenga in the past you know how wobbly everything gets as you pull the lower pieces out and add all of that removed weight to the top.

His metaphor really caught my attention and helped me see the world a little differently. How many things have been pulled out already?  Social distancing, working in person, shopping infrequently, travel bans, etc…  And this is just the list that comes to the top of my mind right now.  There are already so many ways this has impacted life in very significant ways that I’m not even thinking of right now.  Throw in all of the additional pressure, stress, and concerns, and the tower that is my life could very easily start to wobble.  The funny thing is that when you play Jenga enough times you start to learn a couple of things.

First off, just when you think that no more pieces can be pulled out you can usually find several more to remove and re-place before the tower comes down.  The reason I mention this is that there could still be more blocks removed.  I hope that’s not the case, but there’s a very high likelihood that there will be more adversity and challenge in our future.  If we look carefully we might find that some pieces we felt were essential actually could slide out and we would still be okay.

The other thing you notice is that the strength and stability of the tower starts with the base and foundation.  The stronger the base at the beginning the more stable the tower will be.  Some of the blocks that form the base are essential to the structure and without them the tower will fall.  If the tower starts off with a loose and off kilter base it will most likely fall before its time.

Thinking of this metaphor I’m reminded to pause and remember that almost nothing is for ever.  Almost everything could be stripped away.  What I should be doing in a time like this is focusing on the foundation of who I am.  I should be focused on those blocks, protect those blocks, and do what ever is necessary to keep them in place.  One wrong movement and I could knock the tower out of balance.  If I am to take on more weight, more stress, and more responsibility I must keep the base strong.

What are those important blocks for me?  What’s the foundation that I need to keep working on to protect?  What are the pieces of me that I think are essential but in reality could be stripped away without disaster?  Throughout the day those questions have kept popping back into my head.  The interesting thing is that the answer to the question of the core has been tied very closely to a combination of my faith and my values.  Even in both of those I’ve been thinking about what within each of those could be stripped away. this is helping me think more deeply about the “why” behind the importance of each portion.

I know, pretty deep, especially on Mother’s Day!  It’s been a wonderful thought exercise and I’m very thankful for it.  It’s definitely led to some great thinking today.

Thanks!!!

This afternoon we hit the bike trails for the first time this season on bikes.  After several weeks of hiking it was awesome to hop on the bikes and head out.  It’s been quite a few years since we’d last take the Sparta Elroy Trail through the old train tunnel.  The weather just got better and better as we pedaled our way out and back while enjoying the beautiful vistas from the trail.  I’m pumped to get back out with the family again soon!

When Gavin crashed his bike a few weeks ago we decided to upgrade bikes a little.  I’ve been looking at getting a new bike for a while and the boys have been growing right through bikes at a rapid clip.  We decided I’d pick up a new bike and pass mine to Dominic and pass Dominic’s to Gavin.  Odds are we’ll be buying them both new ones soon with as quickly as they’re growing.

Back in the day the boys enjoyed taking part in the YMCA Kids Triathlon.  Each year the team from River Trail Cycles was there volunteering.  Emily and the team were always smiling and helping kids tune up their bikes before the race.  Becky and I always thought it was so awesome that they gave back like that.  I’m not sure who’s smiles were bigger, the kids who were getting their bikes fixed or Emily and the team.  It was awesome to watch and we were greatly appreciative of their help in getting the boys’ bikes ready.

This time around the River Trail Cycles team took excellent care of me.  Dan helped me pick out the right bike based on getting to know how I’d be using it.  He went the extra mile to make sure I got one that was the right size even though it meant extra work for them and the same price for me.  Emily kept in touch as they got the bike ready for me and was super helpful and friendly when I acme to pick it up.  Long story short, they’re a wonderful locally owned business with incredible customer service.  Throw in the volunteer work they do and how could I not be thankful for them?  Thank you Emily, Dan, and the rest of the River Trail Cycles team for the awesome support and service!!!

Thanks!!!