Family Business

The family business. Sometimes people get to decide that we are taking over the family business and other times it is decided for us. Either way, the family business is the way so many people end up doing what they do.

I personally did not end up in the family business whether it was my father as a mechanic or my mom who was a computer programmer for most of my life.

But I did end up in the business of doing family. Where the bottom line is more than profit margins, but we measure growth in other ways. Some growth is highly tangible, like my son getting taller, adding more words to his vocabulary, and his stability as he walks. Other growth isn’t as tangible.

Other other is more ‘guesstimated’. It is not exact a science. It is not as direct and easily broken down as my son’s growth. The growth of my ability to learn how to do plumbing working projects on my house is not a measured growth item. It is a checkbox all the same. I check that box as I know I can replace a bathroom sink.

The family growth is just as important to me as the business growth, and I might even argue more important. There is not as many measurements in the family growth department. Obviously, you have the business/factory model of the American establishment of education. But where is the family growth spreadsheet to show how much I have developed as a unit of a family?

Where is my quarterly review as a father and husband?

Not to say I should not be growing and developing in these areas for my own personal benefit. But if having regular reviews and development plans are essential to the way my brain works. Where are the family metrics to show a family who is developing and growing and becoming more than an analogue unit of “Yes, this family continues to be together” or “No, this family is no long considered a together unit.” Where are the gray areas where there is room to grow as people within this structure?

How are you developing your family? How are you measuring yourself within the context of your family? How are you growing as an owner in the business of your family? What are you measuring to know your growth and development is more than ‘felt’?

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Songify

Lin Manuel Miranda, Rogers and Hammerstein, Beethoven, Bach, John Williams, Hans Zimmer, and Vivaldi wrote every song, score, and symphony the exact same way: One note at a time.

They sat down with their staff paper and added in note by note, part by part, every melody, chorus, verse, bridge, and prechorus. 

After outlining the core of their piece, the added on the harmonies to round it out. Once it was satisfactorily well rounded, they added in the embellishments that set it apart with their mark and style. 

Likewise, you are today because you build upon who you were yesterday and who you have been up till now. You have not found a way to jump to a point where you are more developed or fully developed without putting in the work. 

Each day of your life is another dot on the staff paper. Each week, another bar. Each year, another phrase, melody, and embellisment.

Like their compositions, your life does not compose itself it is made up of the decisions you make and the way you live your life and there is no shortcut to becoming who you want to be. Each day must be lived in consistency with the key signature and values you want my life to be consistent with. 

Some of these decisions are made for you. Skin color. Height. Eye color.

The rest is up to you to maximize the decisions you cannot control for the good of the people that matter most to you. And every day is more progress toward giving them the sweet song your life is becoming. These people are the audience of the song of your life. The people who get to enjoy your life as it plays out.

Who is the audience of the song of your life? What values are you keeping your life consistent with? How are you focusing on making the people you care most about better? 

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Grownups

When I was a little kid, I always looked up to adults. Literally, I haven’t always been six feet tall. Really though, they were the grownups. They were so much taller and smarter than I was. I wanted to be just like them when I was grownup. Tall and smart, that’s what it meant to me to be a grownup, tall and smart.

Here I am all these years later and I’m still waiting for someone to give me a badge. To let me know, I am an adult. I’m 32, a father, and I still wonder when I’ll be a grownup. Reflecting on what’s so different now from that little kid who sat in the room while his parents and their friends sat around talking and chatting about adult things. Most of which in my memory sounds exactly like the adults from Charlie Brown. I think I’m about as tall as I’ll ever be, unfortunately.

The more I reflect on what a grownup is, the more I have realized, grownups are a process not a destination. I’ll never be grownup. I will continue to grow up and develop and learn and improve and become more adult. I am definitely much taller today than I was then, but that does not seem to make me an adult. It only seems to cause others to assume I am an adult. We will see how the smart part plays out, but I like to think I am smarter today than I was then.

A grownup is a participant in the process of growing up.

I have to choose to be a participant in this process, and that is all it means to be a grownup. To keep participating in the process and never stop. To believe I have arrived at the destination of being a grownup will mean, I cannot grow any more and my potential will then have peaked.

How are you participating in the process of growing up? How are you intentionally participating in the process of growing up? What would it look like fo you to stop participating? (The best way to avoid failure is to know what it looks like.) What would it look like for you to start participating? Who can help hold you to your word to participate in the process of growing up?

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Half Slice

The landline has existed, as far as I am concerned, since the dawn of time. It was a great tool in its time. It worked well. It was relatively reliable. It was not too complicated to use. Best of all, it was a stepping stone to the internet’s infrastructure.

Today the phone is not what it once way. Today, we do not use them much at all in the same way to how they were intended to be used. Today most everyone uses a cell phone and that cell phone is probably a smartphone.

Our tools change over time. They develop and grow into what we need them to be. We needed a way to talk to our friends and family who were far away. Now we can talk to them, send them a picture, send them a video, or write them a message all from the digital half-slice of bread we keep in our pockets.

We all wanted to be able to talk to our friends and family. What we got is way more than what we needed. Where we’ll end up is way more than Ma Bell ever imagined. But these tools are integrated into our lives almost as much as the food we eat or the clothes we wear.

What tools are deeply integrated into your life? What tool could do the job better? What tools do you not need? What tools do you need in your life?

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My Sunday Best

I like to think I do my best. Whether I am washing the dishes, tying my shoes, or driving down the road. I am doing my best. But I haven't ever asked myself of what it means to do my best.

Up till now, my best has been showing up and doing whatever it is I am here to do. My best has never involved much preparation. My best has only been what I have at the moment, trying a little bit, then coasting the rest of the way through on whatever I could do in the moment.

Most everything I have done is hardly an example of my best.

My best has been attendance with effort.

My best involves preparation.

My best involves planning.

I have been doing myself and others a complete disservice.

I can do better.

Up till now, I have been doing my best from the perspective I had at the time. Now I have a new perspective and a new responsibility to do my best with my new perspective. Doing my best now requires I am ready to do my best in the moment because I have prepared myself to do better than I have done before.

Like a musician practicing for their great performance, they do not show up on concert day and kill it by accident, it is only because of their hard work and preparation.

What does doing your best look like right now? How can you improve your best? Who can help you improve your best?

Preparing,

–JT

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Perpetual Learner

I am regularly called upon as a defacto tech support guy for family and a few friends. A role I fill with honor and pride as most often I am fixing problems or answering experience based questions, two things I enjoy doing at my core.

When helping I often surprise myself and others with how much I can do. How quickly I am willing to dive knee deep into the issue and start sorting it out. I do not shy away from getting into the nitty gritty of the issue and start boiling it down to the core issue. Usually when presented with the opportunity I am able to research and finagle my way around the information-super-highway with ease until I have the complete issue brought to a close.

My ability to lean into the issue is what makes me most enjoy the process. I am not intimidated by the little computer or the software making it run. I trust myself to figure out how to fix any issue I create while trying to fix the problem at hand.

I never shy away from helping with tech support.

I regularly shy away from other sorts of skilled work. Skilled work like carpentry, pottery, and gardening.

I know these are skills I could have, but I have no interest in them. I have no drive or fire to figure them out. I have effectively stuck my head in the sand in regards to these skills. I do not want to have them because so little of my life needs them. Plus, once I dig into these skills, they require so many tools that are effectively single use tools I cannot see myself using for any other purpose.

I am ashamed to say it but for many skills and crafts, I have effectively stuck my head in the sand and I do not care to learn any more about them. I am happy to stay as ignorant now as I was before. There is a healthy medium place between where I am and a master carpenter. But for now I am as unskilled as the plank I am not holding.

Where are you sticking your head in the sand? What area could you be more knowledgeable or skilled? Who can teach you more about this area?

Learning,

–JT

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Desert of Experiences

When I look at successful people, I just get plain overwhelmed sometimes. I see all the ways they shine and just cannot even fathom getting to their station or place in life. Whether it is how many years they have worked for a particular company, the size and success of the company they lead, the number of people they lead, or quite simply the quality of their lives.

I get lost in all the details of how well they have done for themselves and how they are in such a good spot. Like an inexperienced traveler on foot overlooking the Sahara Desert. I cannot comprehend how I could ever do the same thing.

I look at this Sahara desert and forget the desert is made up of grains of sand.

I forget that each grain of sand came from somewhere.

They were not born as the Sahara Desert.

It was a lifetime each little grain of sand being chipped away from stones that made them into the mighty desert they became. I forget my own life will not be born into the Sahara overnight. It will only be through the passage of time wearing away each grain of experience into the desert of my own life that I will ever be anything like the people I admire and respect.

Grainy,

–JT

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Don't Stop Believing

I listen to a lot of podcasts about self improvement, self growth, and general social psychology/anthropology. For better or for worse, I listen to it all and have about 3 months worth of backlog I’ve been plowing through (Pokémon Go and PokéWalks have been a huge help.) But most recently I have been noticing a lot of conversations on my podcasts about getting to this goal or that goal or this point or that point and the necessity of getting a certain status/position.

Status and position is wonderful and useful. We need a certain amount of both to pay our bills. We need this position at a company to make enough money to eat, have a home, and occasionally take a vacation. We need this amount of status in order to be taken seriously within a community of people who we support and support us. We need a little bit of both.

However, neither one is the point. The point is the perpetual process of growing and learning. Even when I get to the goal or status or position. I am not done. I am only turning the corner on this leg of the journey. Getting a new job, getting married, having a kid, and graduating college are all turning points in life, not destinations. New cars, houses, couches, boats, lakefront property, are all amenities, not last stops. In life, there are no destinations. There are only turning points, roadside diners, and rest areas.

My journey is not over because I reach a certain point. My journey is turning a corner and preparing me for what comes next. Part of achieving a certain goal is the assumption of liability of what the next leg of the journey carries and assessing the responsibilities of a certain status or position before I set or achieve the next goal.

What goals are you working towards? What problems do you expect these goals to mitigate? What are some of the drawbacks of a new position? What are some of the perks of a new status? What is your assessment rubric for what you really need and want in life?

Journeying,

–JT

Plateaus

I have been thinking a lot about plateaus. A plateau on a graph, not the geological formation. The geological formation, though beautiful at times and impressive in size and shape, does not resonate with me in same way as a plateau on a graph.

The plateau on a graph has an upward slope into it. Then it levels off for a little bit. Then it rises again. However, if my x axis is time and my y axis is growth, then when my growth line pauses and becomes parallel to the x axis, I have plateaued.

Time does not stop because I have stopped growing. Time will drag me along no matter what I do.

The best reference I can find is the Golden Gate Bridge, a giant undertaking and enormous structure. A structure taking from January 1933 to April 1937 to build, four years of someone’s life was spent building it. However, the story of the bridge started in 1916.

A project almost twenty years in the making. After it was built, the instigator of it all. The engineer who fought and struggled to bring it to fruition, he passed away in 1938.

He spent from 1916 to 1933 working to bring the project to life and only enjoyed the bridge for a little over a year before passing away.

When the engineer encountered the opportunity of building the Golden Gate Bridge, it was all he worked on for the rest of his life. He worked on a project of significance, but it was all he did for his life. It marks the San Francisco Bay area, but it also defined his life, and he was barely there to enjoy it.

What are you working to do? When do you step back to enjoy the work you are doing? When do you stop to enjoy life around you? How are you growing with time? Is the work you are doing now the work you want to define the rest of your life? Who is helping you find where to go next?

X & Y,

–JT

Leveling Up

I was listening to a podcast recently and they mentioned in passing about, ‘leveling up.’ The podcast was about growth and advancement and developing. It was really about their specific process, but they made this passing comment about leveling up. I took the passing comment and ran with it.

My brain took the passing comment and my creative juices flowed with the idea to make it an intentional part of growth.

My brain made it a qualifier for growth. Where am I at now? What situation am I in? What does it look like to ‘level up’ past where I am now? How do I start moving my life towards leveling up?

My brain took ‘leveling up’ and made it into a way to get past hurdles. My brain gamified life. I donot love the idea of gamifying life, but I do love the way I am able to look at the future with a more concrete perspective. I am able to see where I am at and how to get to the next level. I can create a clearer plan on what it looks like to be a better version of me. My belongings are tools to augment who I am and make me better. Make my family better. Make my community better. I have to look at the usefulness of things and the job they do rather than pick up the fun stuff I want or desire.

The ‘leveling up’ life has a great potential to grow and mature. I am more inspired to be better when I feel like I am putting milestones into my life to grow past and develop through.

What does leveling up look like for you? What are you keeping around you that is not helping you be better at being you? How can you help someone else level up?

Leveling Up,

–JT

New Skills

I like to work hard. It is very rewarding to see what I have been able to create or where I have gotten with hard work. I appreciate other people who work hard. Hard work can take me far in life. I think in some regards, a healthy work ethic can really take anyone far in life.

The issue comes when what I have done to get to where I am at is not going to take me to where I want to go. To get to where I am at has taken hard work and diligence. X tasks and focusing on Y actions. However, Z tasks and N actions are required to succeed where I am at now and move to where I want to go. It is a little mundane to think about how I got to where I am. And process and reprocess the fundamentals of getting to where I am headed. The guiding principles that got me here seem to be the same, but the way they play out from here are most definitely different.

I have heard about the symptoms I need to change, but I have not figured out the core of what needs to change. I do know I can try different things until I find the right thing. Continuing to try new things will help me figure out how to succeed. Feedback from other will help me succeed. Trying to act the same way over and over again and expecting different results will lead to lunacy. Troubleshooting, hard work, and community seem to be the best tools I have at the moment in figuring out how to do get better at what I do.

Where in your life are you trying to figure out something new? Who do you have around you to help you figure out how to do it better? How can you try to succeed in a different way?

Trying,

–JT

Steps

For every step I take in knowing who I am and how comfortable I am in my own skin I find mixed results. I the more comfortable I am in my own skin, the more I am able to relax, let my hair down, and be who I am with people I know and trust. However, the more I am who I am most comfortable being, the more I receive questions and comments about my attitude, demeanor, and disposition. 

People start to ask me if I am ok all the time. They start to ask about me. They start to get really concerned about me. In turn, I start to get really concerned about myself. I start to become hyper aware of my own demeanor and disposition. I start to question whether or not I am ok. I start to dig around and look into how I am doing, I assume there is something wrong. I am constantly looking for the wrong thing looking to fix it. I want to fix the broken part when all along, the broken part is what I assumed.

I assumed there is something wrong. 

There was not anything wrong more than my assumption. I was ok to begin with. I was just operating differently than everyone else which is completely normal. I am different than many and similar to many. However, the people I am different from will ask if I am ok because they are not sure. The people I am the same as will ask if I am ok because they care. 

Are you starting with the wrong assumption? What is your problem?

Unbroken,

–JT

Growth

Growth, I have been observing many things in life and their ability to grow or not grow. Most things I watch from afar, such as corporations, businesses, and people groups. Some things I watch closely, like my job, friends, and finances. Very few things in life I watch with microscopic examination, such as my health and well being, the health and well being of my wife, and the stability of our home’s ecosystem. 

I try to have a general knowledge of where most all of these things are at. I try to keep an idea of what symptoms are of a healthy growing home and symptoms of an unhealthy growing home.

The unhealthy growth is resonating with me deeply at the moment. Unhealthy things grow. Cancer, great example of unhealthy growth. 

Nobody asks for cancer. Nobody wants uncontrolled growth in their body. Nobody wants their body to become a garden of tumors. However, unhealthy things grow. Weeds grow. They grow right along side healthy wheat. They spring up and there is nothing you can do about it. 

As I continue to fertilize, water, and cultivate my personal health, there will be seeds falling into the soil I did not put there. There will be parts of me I did not intend to grow, but they have been growing for years. There will other parts of me I thought were healthy and it turns out the net result is unhealthy. 

The unhealthy parts will grow, even when I think I have cut them off. The only way to pull them up is to dig deep and pull it up by its roots and know it is going to hurt. 

An unhealthy part of me is, I am afraid to speak truth or my opinion (not always the same thing) when it opposes someone else’s truth or opinion. I am afraid to hurt people’s feelings. I am not doing these people any good to not speak truth when they are pointed in a bad direction.

Where are unhealthy things growing in your life? 

Digging Deep,

–JT

Measuring Up

When I was young, a mentor of mine took me out for a trip to Burger King. Nothing special there. Your usual run-of-the-mill, “flame broiled”, “have it your way” sort of place. However, we had a very unusual conversation. The conversation was about measuring up. It was about comparisons and expectations. Comparisons people make of me. Comparisons where other people would measure me and decide to deny or accept me based on how they thought I measured up to their sticks. 

I am beginning to realize I do this now. I measure other people. I say they should measure to metric 1, 2, and 3. Not because I have the golden ruler; simply, because I have developed what I think successful people do in my mind and I want everyone to succeed and therefore they need my metrics. 

I try to maintain a broad understanding of what it takes to be successful. However, that does not change the reality of me measuring people on a very imperfect ruler. My spacing is uneven, the stick curves, and it often fluctuates between Imperial Units and International Units. 

Who am I to be developing any sort of measuring stick for success?

I can clearly communicate expectations and direction for someone. I can develop a clear idea of who I want to be and what I want to do to succeed. However, it is not my job to develop a measuring stick to use to for others to in-errantly obey. It is my job to communicate to others a clear expectation for given situations (i.e. do not touch the stove, it is hot and will burn you most of the time.) It is my job to otherwise help others succeed in the areas they want to succeed in. 

Where are you developing measuring sticks? Where should you encouraging, not measuring?

Measured,

–JT

Ebb And Flow

Life has rhythms, cycles, ebbs and flows. It has natural direction and development to it. A newborn experiences these development cycles quickly after she is born. She will go from a dark fluid–filled life to walking in a short while. Before walking happens there are many other transitions she’ll experience involving teeth, solid foods, diapers, milk/formula, and the all important sleep cycle. 

One day this baby girl might learn to play guitar. She will experience a new development cycle different from the one she experienced as a newborn. She will first have to go from being completely in the dark about how to play, use a pick, finger pluck, chord structures, major scales, minor scales, sheet music, tablature, chord charts, arpeggios, tapping, strumming patters, lead patterns, and techniques. Slowly but surely she will learn these things. She will learn her first song (Louie Louie or Mary Had A Little Lamb of course) and, with excitement, play it over and over again until her parents begin limiting her practice time or make her practice in the garage. One day she’ll even join her friends and start a band, join the school band, or her instructor might even have her join a guitar ensemble. Once in a group, she will learn a whole new slew of of skills of and talents to hone and again experience a new cycle of development and maturation.

At no point would we ever want to stop or slow down a newborn’s development and maturation. At no point would we ever want to stop or slow down a new musician’s development and maturation.

However, for whatever reason I find myself looking back and forth between my future and my past wanting to relive fond memories. Wanting to reproduce fond memories. I find myself not thinking about the new events of the future. I hold onto the fun things I’ve already lived through. There is a certain amount of fear and trepidation coming from the unknown of the future. Truly, it is not the fear holding me back. It is a joy of the past and present keeping me from moving forward. It is the cost of change. The price of new. I think these are the reasons I am having a hard time concentrating on the future. I have had a good life. 

I have a good life. 

What would make me want to upset the apple cart? 

I have been having a hard time remembering the cost and prices I paid for the changes I have lived through. Much like our new guitarist, she will go through the pains of muscle cramps in her fingers from practicing too much and developing calluses on her fingers is not pain free either. However,  I guess you might say, “The end justified the means.”

Today I am reminding myself to embrace new plans for the future. These plans come at a cost. Some of them will be successful, others of them will leave, “room for improvement.” All of them will teach me something. 

What do you think about the future? What cost are you not willing to pay for growth? What past experience are you clinging to?

Developing,

–JT

Afraid of the Dark

A great leader once said, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” These words may or may not be completely true. But I do believe there is power in fear. It is paralyzing. Fear makes me anxious. Fear makes me not want to do things because the possibility of failure. Sometimes I have even been fearful at the thought of succeeding. Either way, fear still lingers. 

Lately, I have been in many situations where I find myself afraid of what is coming. I am afraid to step up. Afraid to do something new. Afraid to fill shoes bigger than my old shoes. Generally, fearful of what is going on. The crazy part about being so afraid and fearful of what I am doing is,

I have been loving it and hating it at the same time.

I have been doing new things, trying new things, and getting out of my comfort zone and it has been going well. I have been reminded of a truth I once new. If I’m not doing something I am afraid of, I am probably not growing. This phrase is true, not universally true, but it is truth for me  and healthy for now. There are rare times or seasons where I am maybe not doing anything new but there is still some fear in me. 

The core still remains, doing new things often comes with a fair amount of fear. It is good for me to do things I’m afraid of. 

I think I am growing and succeeding because I am facing down my fears. 

The biggest fear I have been facing is my fear of failure. A fear I now call, a fear of learning.

Where is fear keeping you from taking a step out? Where are you letting fear rule you?

Fearfully,

–JT