Over the past week or so it seems I’ve been the last man standing in the Kreiling house.  Not gonna lie, it’s pretty peaceful.  The chill time gives me a chance to relax, take in the day, and listen to some great music.

Over the past few nights there’ve been a few songs that seem to keep making it back into the rotation.

• Hurt by Johnny Cash – https://youtu.be/vt1Pwfnh5pc
• Jesus Was an Only Son by Bruce Springsteen – https://youtu.be/Qelew5_k90E
• Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley – https://youtu.be/y8AWFf7EAc4

Just some good time to sit back, close my eyes and chill.

How can I not appreciate moments like this?

Thanks!!!

Today has been a pretty awesome day so far.  The day has gone so well that I was struggling to find a way to include all that I am thankful for, but I think I found it…

It started off with an early morning drive up to Eau Claire through some impossibly huge snowflakes.  On a whim I turned right instead of going straight and took the path less traveled.  It paid off in spades for me.

Just a short distance south of Whitehall I saw a sight that caused me to jam on the brakes, turn around, and find a place to park the car.  Watching for traffic I quickly went into the road and was able to snap a pic of what captured my attention…  I swear, there are no edits or special effects done to capture this picture.

The flowers were a memorial to someone and they immediately brought to mind my friend Larry and his family, who are suffering through a horrific tragedy.  As I thought about Larry I couldn’t help but remember times I’ve spent with him in different Chamber events and whatnot.  He is always quick to smile, take his time to consider things before speaking, and always reminds me of a younger version of one of my grandpas.  He always went out of his way to help me feel comfortable in room and I always smiled when seeing him in a meeting I went into.  In thinking about Larry I smiled and realized that in a week or so I need to take him out for coffee and re-connect.

While driving I got a phone call from Nicole, one of my team members in Rice Lake.  She is spunky, motivated and has a super high and positive energy that just exudes from her voice first thing in the morning.  When talking with her I could just hear the pride and passion she has for what she does, and as always, the phone call ended with a big smile on my face.  Later in the day she called again and joked about how I must hate getting calls from her, but in actuality I really appreciate them.  Her enthusiasm always helps get me more fired up.

While in the Eau Claire office I had my first peer coaching call with Jason from Nashville.  Talk about someone with high energy and drive – wow!!!  Our 40 minute call was incredibly helpful and I was left in awe of how efficiently and effectively he handled the call.  We were able to set the stage of where we both want to develop to within the next year, discuss our areas for improvement, discuss how to help hold each other accountable, and learn a lot about our long term goals and our families.  It was an incredibly uplifting call that had me psyched!

Shortly after the call Katie from our Eau Claire office came in to the office I was in and was just beaming with happiness and pride.  She explained that they had several new clients starting and how much she was loving a slight twist on her position.  Her smile was contagious and I left the conversation feeling very positive, optimistic, and proud.

Over lunch I was able to spend time with Lee and Carolyn, the managers of Eau Claire and Menomonie and Beth, my regional developer.  The conversation focused on our goals for 2017, some of the personal goals and dreams we had and what was needed to get on track to reach them.  It was upbeat, optimistic, positive, and yet grounded in knowing that we have a lot of hard work to get there.  Carolyn and Lee both made me smile and feel a sense of pride in seeing how much they’ve grown over the past year or so and how ready they are to do great things in 2017 and beyond.

To close up the work day (in the office at least) I spent some one on one time with Beth.  I am incredibly thankful and appreciative to have someone who has a great balance of pushing, asking tough questions, all while motivating, and supporting me.  She’s always in a good mood and her positive energy always leaves me feeling re-charged and ready to take on the world.  Spending time with her always puts more color in my day.

As I headed home I hopped on the phone with Becky for a while and joked around with her.  Regardless of how trivial the conversation I am always happy to talk with her as I start to head home from a day of work.  It is a reminder of why I push as hard as I do – for us to be able to do more together.

My dad and I caught up on what we hadn’t talked about over the past week and covered topics like work, retirement, snow plowing, and parental karma (almost last night’s topic, it’s a long, but funny story for another day).  While we didn’t solve any of the world’s problems, we enjoyed each other’s company.

While the boys and Becky are all at log rolling I know that they will be amongst the last ones to bring color to my day when they get home.  While they aren’t quite as happy to see me when they get home as the dogs are, giving them big hugs when they get home always bring me joy and help me feel at home.  I already know the answers to the questions I’ll ask them (How did log rolling go? – Good.  What was new at school today? – Nothing) I’ll still be happy to ask them and press them for better answers before tucking them in to bed at night.

Today was an awesome day and it was made more awesome by the people I interacted with.  I started with taking a different way on a whim and ended up finding the photo that put this all together.  Especially during winter and the holidays I have the choice to see the world as I would like to.  I can choose to see the bland white, the dreary gray, the dark black…  or I can choose to see the color.  I can focus on those things that bring the beauty and happiness in spite of, and sometimes because of the appreciation of, the whites, grays, and blacks.  Thank you to everyone who helps to bring color to my life!

Thanks!!!

For the past 17 years I’ve had the exact same plans for the first Saturday night of December.  That is the date of our annual Express Christmas Party and tonight’s was another great one!

Between Express Jeopardy, gift exchanges, Christmas tree contests (a pic of Winona’s is above, shown prior to the ornaments being added), and just spending time with our teams and their spouses it was a wonderful time.  Judging by the smiles and all the laughing I’m guessing everyone else did too!

Thanks again to everyone who set it up, for everyone who was there, and for all of our team members.

Thanks!!!

Ahh…  Bathroom re-modeling…  One of those things that even after a few times I remember taking significantly less time to do than it really does.  Eight days after starting the remodel we’re back to having a fully functional bathroom upstairs.  There’s still some work to do (stain trim, trim out the bathroom, do a little bit of caulking, and clean off the inch and a half of dust) but we’re back to having a working bathroom on our main floor, and it is wonderful!

As I stood back and admired my work I smiled and thought about how nice it would be to not have to walk all the way downstairs to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  When I realized what I was thinking I realized how lucky and fortunate I am to have this minor of a problem in life.  Some people don’t have anything, and here I am feeling better about having a second bathroom working again…  I am very thankful for the fact that I have the occasional first world problem to remind how fortunate I am.

Thanks!!!

“When you really want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”  Paulo Coelho

Isn’t it funny how life works sometimes?  It seems as if when I take some time to think about what I really want in life things start to change a little.  There are these little nudges all around me that seem to either help push me towards my goals or remind me of the dream and start the process of getting it to bubble back up to the forefront of my thought process.  When I haven’t spent time thinking about my dreams, goals, and ideas these little nudges fade away.  If I’ve spent time thinking about them, writing them out, and talking about them with other people they come back in full force and help keep me motivated.

Today was one of the days where the little nudges were everywhere…  I just needed to stop and listen to them occasionally.

• There’s a possible opportunity to go on a dream vacation sooner than expected, and possibly not have to pay a dime for it!  It will probably be tough as hell to do, but the opportunity may be there.
• A couple of days ago there was a cool article on Facebook about a couple traveling to all the National Parks in a year.  Then today Becky opens up the envelope from our insurance agent and there’s a calendar of National Parks inside!  A great reminder for me of all the places Becky and I need to get to (18 down, 41 to go!).
• A potentially difficult situation appeared at work and I almost handled it the same way I normally would.  Before I took action I happened to read an email from my Leadership Academy cohort and it reminded me of a professional goal I was working on.  I paused, thought about how the Mike who was living into his goal would react, sought out advice from a great coach, and made a much better decision.
• And several other little experiences and reminders throughout the day…

I’m not going to lie, maybe it’s just me tricking my brain out into seeing things and patterns that aren’t there, but I’m happy, focused, and working towards my dreams.  Instead of thinking about it too much I’m just going to roll with it…  Kind of like at yoga tonight when there were a couple of points when I got into an awesome state of flow for a second or two, then realized that I was in flow, thought about how cool that it was, and then I was out of it and thinking too hard.  I’ve got to relax and go with it and not overthink it.

Thanks!!!

 

There’s a few levels to this one, bear with me and I hope you stick it out all the way through.  November rain has a handful of meanings to me and as you’ll quickly see they range from very light hearted to happy memories to deep feelings of loss.

November rain makes me think of how happy I am to be able to still run outside this late in the year!  If it is raining in November I’m probably still running outside, there’s no snow or ice, and I am a very happy runner.  While the damp can make it feel much colder I’ll gladly take that over high stepping it through the snow.

A few nights ago Becky fired up a song that had been bouncing in my head earlier in the month…  November Rain by Guns N Roses.  It was great, she fired up the music video on the TV and we chilled while watching it.  That song always reminds me of hanging out with my Aunt Diane at my Grandparents house watching MTV and hoping for the video that has “the crazy guy jumping through the wedding cake.”  When the first piano notes play I’m instantly teleported to the thick brown carpet of their living room (probably laying on several of the Nerds candy pieces that Nick and I had ground so deep into the carpet that even my grandma’s twice a day vacuuming couldn’t pull them out).  If you’re now jones-ing for that video you can check it out here.

That song and video start to pull me towards the other feeling I get from rain in November…  a sense of loss.  As we watched the video on the couch it turned out that was the first time that she had ever watched the video.  After the wedding scene transitioned from rain to a funeral Becky was thrown for a loop.  “She died???”  The music changes from a slow but slightly uplifting tune to a dark and brooding sound that makes me picture loss.

For some reason rain in November, especially at night, leaves me feeling loss.  The cold, the dark, the ending of the year, and the damp just chill me to my bones and leave me seeing visions of funerals.  I don’t know a better way to put it, it feels like loss.  Not in a totally depressing way, we need the dark to remind us to appreciate the light.  Sometimes just picturing flashes of loss remind me to take stock of all that I have in my life, all those I love, and all that I am thankful for.  Nothing gold ever stays…  cold November rain reminds me of that fact.

So whether you can connect with what I am saying on all or one or two of the things that November rain make me think of, I hope that you take a moment tonight to appreciate a rare moment and just feel.

Thanks!!!

This could end up being an incredibly huge, deep, and way too personal blog post…  But based on what time it is and the fact that I just got done grouting the bathroom I’ll cut to the chase. 🙂

There have been many business books that I’ve enjoyed, but it’s nice to find one that bridges between personal and business life.  That’s just what the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans did.

While it’d probably do the book more justice to copy and paste the summary I’ll give it a shot.  At the root of the book is a process to walk through your life and find ways to bring more happiness.  The ideas include reviewing how happy you are with a handful of aspects of your life, a tool to pay close attention to the types of activities that bring you the most joy, ways to look at alternate ways to get to your goals, and ways to keep developing yourself.  As I type this I realize that the previous sentence doesn’t make it sound very exciting, but the ideas have been bouncing around in my head for the past couple of months – so much so that I’m in the process of reading it again.

In a short period of time it has already brought me several A-Ha moments.  While I’ve just started actually going through the processes laid out in the book I’ve been able to see the world just a little bit differently.  As I’ve talked about being very calm and happy over the past week I’m realizing that there are many things that I’ve picked up from the book that are starting to sink in.

Whether it’s because of the ideas from the book or it’s just me living life that’s doing the trick, I’m feeling pretty damn good!  If you’d be interested in checking out the book you can find more info on it here.  Also, if you pick it up please let me know what you think.  I’d be happy to go out for a coffee and learn more about how to implement some of the ideas.

Thanks!!!

Pulling into the driveway tonight I couldn’t help but smile as I saw the Christmas lights on our house.  There’s just something awesome and Christmas-ish about seeing the multicolored lights twinkling on the house.  And to think that I almost skipped them this year.

Becky had asked me a week or so ago when I was going to put the lights up and I just groaned.  Knowing the projects I already had on my plate it seemed like something that would get in my way.  Yeah, it’s always fun seeing them and picking them out, but there’s usually a handful of moments of stress and frustration.  And then there’s the taking them down, it can be a pain, especially in the cold.  So channeling my inner Grinch I said “I’ll only put them up if the boys ask, and I’m not going to remind them.”

Thinking I was in the clear, yesterday Dominic uttered the words I had been dreading…  “When are we putting up the Christmas lights?”  ARGH!!!  “Today Bud, let’s do it today.”  I groaned and loaded up the boys to make a trip to Menards to pick up some new lights to freshen things up a bit from last year.  Our neighbor Fred had put in a new projector style light that looks pretty cool so the boys and I decided to get one of those…  or maybe three. 🙂

Next thing I knew I was having a lot of fun picking out lights with the boys!  We went home and started putting the lights up and we had more fun.  I decided that putting the projectors in the ground wasn’t quite good enough so I built a box on a three foot stake for one and a stake and platform for another.  Dominic decided that we still needed to use some of our old lights so he did his best impression of Russ Griswald to my Clark.  He was up on the ladder and hanging lights while I figured out how to get power to the lights for him.

Realizing that we were missing some supplies (green and white paint to decorate the boxes, wire ties, and an adapter to cheat power to the third projector on the roof from lights Dominic hung) so Dominic and I headed to Menards again (any good project requires at least two or three trips to be completed, right?)  We finished things up with the new supplies and were in business.

After it was all said and done I had spent a pretty good chunk of the day working on our lights.  The thing that I was hoping to skip had left me feeling good and smiling.  I had a lot of fun with the boys, especially Dominic.  It was cool seeing how much fun he was having with this and I’m pretty sure that I have a partner in crime for years to come!  Kind of funny how sometimes there’s things that I don’t get fired up about for some reason, but once I get started it brings me great joy.  Every time I see our lights this year I’ll remember to keep an eye out for opportunities like this.

Thanks!!!