Today’s been a pretty jam packed day, but one in which I was pausing to be thankful for so many moments throughout it.  There were a couple of things I’d focus on individually, but when I when I think about it there’s too much that would be missed, too many relevant moments would be neglected.  With that being the case, here’s a rough list of many of the moments I was thankful for today:

• Thankful for Becky’s resolve.  When I woke up and drug myself out of bed to get ready to go into work early she was already in the middle of a workout.  Her determination motivates me greatly.
• Thankful for driving without any radio, audiobooks, or calls, just driving in silence.  With my goal met for books read this year I paused everything and enjoyed nothing but the present and my own thoughts while I drove to Eau Claire.  It was so peaceful and let to many interesting thoughts…
• Thankful for spending a lot of time thinking about my dad and the lessons he’s taught me, even since he’s been gone.  My book is nearing the halfway point in one way, and is ready to expand in another.  As I took time to think more about it I’ve started peeling apart all of the lessons I’ve learned from losing him.  This will definitely be a key component as one of the biggest reasons for writing it is to pass my thoughts and feelings on to my sons.
• Thankful for that awesome level of sunlight on a cloudy morning in winter time as the sun is coming up when almost everything except street signs and cars ahead of me appear to be black and white.  It’s like the whole world has been stripped of color except for a couple of small pieces which jump off the canvas.  It was beautiful this morning.
• Thankful for meeting up with my friend, Harvey Homsey.  Harvey is the VP of Operations for Express and was in town to visit a couple of our offices to see how we were doing, help us find ways to improve, and to congratulate the teams for their improved performance.  I’ll follow up with the work related thankfulness in a moment, this is focused on the time with my friend.  While we covered a lot of business we also spent time talking family, values, faith, and being a dad.  I can’t even begin to put into words how happy my heart was today as we talked.  Harvey lost his father about 10 years ago and was very open to sharing his emotions and experience, I am so grateful for it.  As luck would have it we even got a little bonus time at the end of the day and I was thankful to have more time to talk.  While I’ve known him for many years I felt like I actually got to know him today, and I am so very thankful for that.
• Thankful for the grit and growth mindset of my teams.  Over the past few months we’ve been focused on changing a couple of processes within our interview process. Change is usually difficult, but my teams took on the challenge and today was the cream on top!  As Harvey was able to spend time with the team he had so many positive things to say about their performance and it was so awesome to see their expressions when he said them.  I’m so proud of their growth mindset and grit, they are a special group!
• Thankful for Becky taking care of Gavin.  During the day Becky let me know that she had to pick up Gavin because he wasn’t feeling well at school.  She also later told me that she had run to school earlier to drop off his violin.  I’m grateful for her saving the day!
• Thankful for getting a weekend set up to meet with my friends.  Life gets busy and sometimes it’s tough to find a time for three of my best friends and I to get together at once.  Today we got a date on the calendar!
• Thankful for talking with my mom on the phone.  It felt great to shoot the bull with my mom while I was driving home.  Quite honestly, there wasn’t any crazy deep dialog or anything, but it just felt great to hear her voice and spend time with her on the phone.  After a long day of work it was just what the doctor ordered and I’m glad we were able to talk.
• Thankful for an eight minute detour.  Due to a slight change in plans I went home a slightly different way than normal.  With that being the case I quit listening to Siri’s directions and took a little detour…  right into Ellsworth, WI for some amazing cheese curds.  They were warm and squeaky, little bites of dairy perfection!
• Thankful for Becky and the boys understanding that sometimes I have to work late.  This could be a weekly blog post if I said it every time that I felt it.  I am so thankful and fortunate to have a family that understands that sometimes my work schedule gets a little crazy.  Knowing that as long as i keep it in check to a certain point they’ll be there to support me is so helpful and keeps me motivated.
• Thankful for being thankful.  As I type this I am smiling from ear to ear.  Spending time in thought thinking about all of the wonderful things in my day leaves me in a wonderful mood as I am about to go to bed.  I’m exhausted and have another early morning ahead of me, but I couldn’t be more full of joy.

Thanks!!!

On a cold day like this is there anything more comfortable than a well broken in sweatshirt?  My favorite sweatshirt has been around for over a decade now.  I came across old pictures of it’s matching twin, Becky’s, from our vacation back in 2007.  Sometime before 2007 our friend Courtney gave us the two matching Wisconsin sweatshirts.

When I was on my run this morning…  Full disclosure, while I was walking for a little while, Becky was running ahead of me…  I realized just how warm I was even though it was cold and windy.  The biggest reason was that I had my favorite sweatshirt on the very top layer.  I smiled and then thought for a while about that sweatshirt, how many of my life’s experiences have been shared with it, and how much happiness it has brought me over the years. It’s kind of crazy, but I’m very thankful for this slowly fraying sweatshirt.

As I go through old pictures it’s surprising to see just how many moments it has been around for…

On warmer winter days it’s all I need for a jacket…

Every time I put this sweatshirt on it comforts me and relaxes me. I associate it with all the things I do with my family, from traveling to running to working in my shop to snuggling on the couch with Becky and the boys. When I put this on it’s a sign to chill out, everything’s going to be okay. At the end of the night it reminds me that it’s time to wind down and chill.

While to the unknowing eye it may look like a slowly fraying sweatshirt, to me it’s a symbol of relaxation, time with family, comfort, and a reminder of many memories… and today I’m very thankful for it.

Thanks!!!

This afternoon I went on a client meeting with Carolyn in our Menomonie office.  The appointment was with a current client that is poised for a huge 2018.  We’d spent many hours preparing for this meeting as we were introducing several new staffing ideas to help them increase candidate flow, reduce absenteeism and turnover, and increase their profitability.

As the meeting rolled on it was AWESOME!!!  We talked about the strategies we were proposing and many more.  Each new portion of conversations led to another insight for the client and another discussion.  The talks went from solutions to trends to very outside the box solutions.  After almost two hours we were able to wrap everything back up into next steps and said our good byes.

Carolyn started to debrief on our way back to the car and I had to pause for a second.  “I’m so stoked, that was awesome!”  After taking a moment to take in the feeling, the rush of a successful meeting, we got back to business.

On the ride home I just kept smiling.  The appointment went fantastic, we lived our vision while meeting with that client.  Strategies were shared, plans were made, and it felt awesome.  We were a part of the solution, one that will benefit our client, our associates, and our team.  It felt awesome!

Thanks!!!

Funny how we go into something assuming one thing and then it works out to be completely different.  This evening Dominic had an orchestra concert and we had to get there early so he was ready.  My thought was to bring some work along to do while I wait, taking advantage of a little quiet time.  When we got there we saw our friends, the Lygas, were already there so we sat down right behind them.

Almost as soon as we sat down someone said, “Hey Mike!”  I looked over and saw an old friend from Boy Scouts and high school, Kent Gabrielson.  It had been a long time since I last ran into Kent, and it was awesome catching up with him.  We quickly go caught up on kids, careers, Phillips, and everything in between.  Time flew by and before we knew it the concert was about to start.

After Kent’s son was done and they had left I shot the bull with Steve and compared beard grooming habits.  This was the second day in a row that I was in the presence of another epic ginger beard – what a treat!  After the show we were able to also listen to our boys (9 year olds) talk about taking his wife’s moped in the middle of the night to get pizza and party at a friend’s house.  It was comical!

We may have been there for the concert (Dominic did awesome) and I was planning on getting work done, but it instead turned into a very enjoyable social event and I’m thankful that it did.

Earlier in the day it was all about work, in particular, spending some time with my business partner and mentor, Norm.  Even though work life can get swamped we always spend time on the phone every Monday morning at 9am to get on the same page for the week.  It gives me a chance to take all the thoughts in my head and condense them into the three most important things that I need to focus on each week.

Today was a change of pace.  Based on some coaching and mentoring from him and others over the past year I wanted to try a new strategy for this year.  There are many long term thoughts and ideas that I’d like to work on and put into place, but in order to stay focused where I need to I’m only going to focus my time on things that accomplish those three goals this years.  Today I wanted to spend time bouncing many of those ideas off of him so I had a general understanding and then I’ll file them away to re-visit in 2019 because they are not mission critical to this year.

Spending time with Norm was exactly what the doctor ordered.  It was a great mix of him pushing and challenging me while staying open and supportive.  I learned a lot from the conversation and was able to look at a couple of things from different perspectives.  Over the next day I’ll get my notes put together from the meeting to make sure we both saw it the same way and then move back into the priorities for 2018.

What I’m most thankful for is the fact that I have a coach and mentor in Norm to help me through my thoughts and ideas like this.  In many cases I’d love to do my own thing my own way, but that’s not always right.  Sure, it works sometimes, but it seems to work a lot better when I get some solid feedback to re-tool a strategy first.  Knowing that I have a mentor like this who’s willing to give me a few hours to bounce things off of him is pretty amazing and I’m very thankful for that time with him.

Today’s been another awesome day.  From the time I woke up to the time I’ve ben writing this blog there have been many moments in which I’ve smiled and spent some thought thinking about how I would blog about them…  and I’m grateful for every single one of those moments.

Thanks!!!

This afternoon we had the opportunity to meet Courtney and Shane’s son, two week old Henry.  He’s cute, adorable, and one awesome little guy!  It was great to spend time with him, Courtney & Shane.  We shot the bull, snuggled with the little guy, watched some of the Packer game and had an awesome time.

There’s something so cool about seeing the glow that new parents have after the birth of their child, it made me smile as a fellow parent.  It took me back to when the boys were that small, seemingly eons ago in one day and just yesterday in other ways.  Thinking about how much our boys have grown has me thankful for appreciating my time with the boys, they’ll be grown before I know it.

Prior to heading to Shane, Courtney, & Henry’s house we had a thought provoking sermon courtesy of Father Matt.  In it he discussed how we need to remember that everyone needs to be treated a little bit differently and we should take time to think about that prior to action.  To help share the story he talked about his sister’s dog.  As an rescue dog she’s seen hard times and needs to be treated differently than other dogs.  She’s still a loving dog, but she needs to be handled very differently.  As you can imagine, I could relate due to my experiences with our rescue dog, LuLu.

It was a wonderful reminder for me when communicating with others.  How is it best to share a message?  What is the best way to communicate both good and bad news?  Many times I default to my natural tendencies as opposed to pausing to think about who the message is intended for.  As I prepare for future conversations I’ll be sure to pause and remember this wonderful message.

Another awesome day is in the books, I’m so thankful for these two very different moments that really helped to shape my day and thoughts today.

Thanks!!!

 

Becky’s on her way home and we’re pumped to have her back home. But with her on the road and Gavin at a sleepover it’s time for some Mike & Dominic time!

When I asked Dominic what he wanted to do he said, “well, it’s the last boys’ night, wed better do something awesome.” And with that we were off for pizza and a movie!

Time to hang with my other Best-est buddy!

Thanks!!!

There are sometimes where I’d like to get into more detail in my blog, but due to a number of reasons I have to skip some of the details.  Today there was one specific moment that had me smiling from ear to ear and it came in the form of an email from one of my team members.  As you could probably guess, part of it was “Wahoo!!”  It was an exclamation of happiness as a skill set was mastered, an statement of exuberance.  How cool is that?

Today had many Wahoo!! moments and I’m thankful for every single one of them today (in addition to the one that named today).  Whether it was seeing the smile of a friend that I haven’t seen in a while, saving myself from replicating past mistakes, knowing that Becky was on her way home, reminders of my dad, exchanging a couple of very well times texts, making progress on a couple of projects, a fun conversation with my mom, or one of many other Wahoo!! moments, they all made my day pretty awesome.

Nothing crazy, nothing earth shattering…  But each moment caused me to paused and gave me joy.  Today was an awesome day and much of the awesome came from many of the Wahoo!! moments, and I’m thankful for each and every one.

Thanks!!!

Becky and I are used to spending time apart, whether for work and whatnot. It’s not an all the time think, but it seems like it’s the case every couple of months or so. No big deal, time apart is fine (& healthy!). I miss her when we’re apart, but nothing crazy.

All that said, I’ve missed her a lot more than usual over the past couple of days. It’s been bugging me, what’s different this time that’s causing me to miss her more. The boys’ schedule isn’t as crazy as it’s been in past times she’s been gone or anything like that. Then it hit me – we missed out on one part of our vacation that I’ve always loved, but have taken for granted… the trip home. When vacation was concluding she was hopping a jet early in the morning to head to Australia while the boys and I were taking our time and heading home.

This meant I had some pretty cool vacation closure time with the boys. We talked about our favorites events, days, meals and memories on the way home. Looking ahead to the upcoming week we talked about what the plan was. There was a lot of conversation about past vacations and how much fun they’d been. In addition we talked about everything that we had to do as soon as we got back and divided up the responsibilities (laundry, dishes, pets, homework, etc). For us it was a chance to conclude the vacation, enjoying the memories and getting ready to back to real life.

Normally I do that with my favorite travel buddy, who also just happens to be my soulmate. We spend the conclusion of the vacation together as we head home. It’s a time to go through pictures, get our heads wrapped around what needs to happen when we get home, and to start planning for our next adventure.

To be honest, I’ve kind of taken that time for granted. With that portion of our vacation removed it doesn’t quite feel right. It seems like there’s something unresolved that can only be fixed by the two of us going through it. This lack of time together at the end of vacation has me missing Becky more than normal.

Isn’t it funny that sometimes we don’t fully appreciate things until they’re gone? Had I not gone through this on this vacation I’d probably have missed it. One thing is for certain, I’m appreciative of the time we have together at the end of vacation and I’ll go out of my way to savor it even more in the future… starting with the time we spend together on Saturday… wrapping up this most recent vacation.

Thanks!!!

After being on the opposite side of the planet our sleep patterns have been a little out of whack.  In addition to the time change we went from over 14 and a half hours of daylight to 9 hours in one day.  Even with a couple of good nights of sleep the boys and I could all feel the lingering effects.

Last night we had a very chill night and ended up having everyone in bed (myself included) before 8:00.  Dominic was a sleep long before then, he was snoring away as Gavin watched Harry Potter and I typed my blog.  While Gavin and I both would have rather stayed up neither of us really put up much of a fight.

When I woke up this morning I felt GREAT!!!  10 hours of sleep was exactly what the doctor ordered.  I went in to wake up Gavin and he shot right out of bed and was smiling big as he bounced into the kitchen to make himself breakfast.  Dominic, who can be pretty rough some mornings, came out of his basement lair and was smiling and talkative.  We had an awesomely happy morning, no issues, no frustrations, no complaints, nothing forgotten, everything went perfectly smooth and we were all out the door with time to spare.  It was AWESOME!

At first I was going to be thankful for this perfect start to the day, but I realized that it’s really because of the sleep we’d gotten that everyone was in a great mood.  Maybe I need to think about forcing myself to bed a little earlier and getting a few more zzz’s every night.  When I think about what my end of the night is spent on it’s not always very productive, and to trade unproductive time for a happy start to the next day seems like a hell of a deal!  I’m thankful for the entire house being well rested, it made for a wonderful morning.

Thanks!!!