Things have been stupid-busy. Lemme explain... no, is too much... lemme sum up:
-- I played in a charity golf event yesterday. Got sunburned, played decent, saw several sports celebrities and was repeatedly mistaken for Sage Rosenfels (Houston Texans backup QB now being traded to the Minnesota Vikings).
-- I've met with the new company President and he really does want me for his right-hand man over what will be an insanely busy effort at corporate realignment. His wife came into his office today, and he introduced me, "This is Michael, he is this company's (some chick's name from his former company)." His wife answered, "Wow... that's good! Mark's going to need you!" We spent over an hour today jumping from topic to topic in the best business conversation I've had in a year.
-- Our church minister offered me a chance to preach one Sunday when he'll be out of town. I accepted. March 22nd, my dad's birthday, which is random but cool. Our church has over 1,000 members split over two different services on Sundays, so I'll do it twice. It's kinda a big deal, and I'm a little nervous but mostly very excited and totally committed to giving my best. Friends have been telling me that this is something I should do.
-- Had to have an uncomfortable but necessary meeting with one of my employees, who has been dropping the ball on some work. He responded well.
__________________ Megaloi -- My Blog
"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."
- Mignon McLaughlin
Nice update, things are going very well for you at the moment. Good Stuff.
__________________
*****************************
Walk on
With hope in your heart
And You'll Never Walk Alone
*****************************
There's no free lunch, especially when it's served with special sauce (lostdog)
***************************** My Log - PC Plod
Thanks gang! I also had an epiphany on Saturday about my self-sabotage pattern in my career thus far. Prepare for more psycho-babble.
For a long time now people have been telling me how far I'll go in my career. "Oh, you'll be a bigtime CEO", "You'll be running companies in no time", etc... It always made me uncomfortable, and whenever I'd have strong projects and results that got me a lot of attention, I'd inevitably follow them up with periods of hiding and ineffectiveness. Just wouldn't keep the foot on the gas pedal.
For years now I've been trying and hoping to will myself through it. "This time I'll keep pushing!" became a mantra but it also became a joke. And it wasn't really funny. Nothing ever changed.
As I've written before, I'm not a big believer in making it happen by sheer willpower. At least not for me. When I get my priorities/beliefs/concepts where they need to be, the habits and results flow naturally. So I spend most of my time challenging and refining my concepts, instead of beating my head against the wall on habits and willpower.
Except in this area of self-sabotage. Classic hyperopia -- I was too close to the problem to see it, or I was too unwilling to really understand what was holding me back.
I was thinking about this while driving the family around for breakfast on Saturday (the biggest mental breakthroughs always happen while doing something physically mundane). Here it is:
I love my family. I love being the husband and daddy that is around and available. It's the life I've purposely created, and I protect it. My own father was a successful businessman and was mostly absent during my childhood. And every single successful corporate executive I've known has either been an absent father, or a disastrous one. I do not have one single role model or mentor for how to be a great success in business and in life. Maybe I've read about guys who pulled it off, or know somebody online who's done it, but I've never seen it with my own eyes. Since I haven't seen it, I don't have a feel for how to make it happen in my own life. And until I have that roadmap, I'm going to keep shooting myself in the foot to prevent a level of promotion that would start to pull me away from my family.
So there it is. I'll be talking with the career coach about it next week.
__________________ Megaloi -- My Blog
"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."
- Mignon McLaughlin
There's a number of people at Otto's current company that are that. The sacrifice home to succeed types. And they're maybe not successful, more spinning their wheels and hoping for success. The classic "well I'm working hard" crap.
Learning to balance and not be afraid of the success because you can still manage to time box, to walk away after your 8 hours, to still be available to your family…
I know there's people that can do it. But as a society, we're so fond of work… there's actually constantly this creeping in of "could you LOOK productive?" crap going around… and real success isn't the guy that is scurrying busily… real success is when all the plates are spinning at once and you're just sitting back and watching for when to add just a bit to one to keep it going. If you're frantic, it's falling apart. And too many people are too frantic in their work lives. Or there's us, unwilling to be successful because it must mean frantic activity that takes us away from what's really important. But it don't, we just have to learn how to navigate that path without it sabotaging the rest of our lives.
Good breakthrough. I've had a couple of my own, but not on this path.
__________________ It all starts with the mind, but the thoughts, the intention aren't enough. Action needs to come next. Dream it, believe it, plan it, execute it, celebrate it. - Wendy
Huge week. Kicking ass at work. Not much else happening. Sunburn almost healed. Sermon is coming together in my head and soon I'll start putting things to paper and then maybe a little PowerPoint. Three weeks away but I wanna be able to do it in my sleep by the time the day arrives.
Piano practice still fun. I may not be doing it the "right" way to become an accomplished classical pianist, but that wasn't my goal anyway.
Tomorrow night is date night; we're gonna try to grab a quick dinner and then go to Slumdog Millionaire.
__________________ Megaloi -- My Blog
"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."
- Mignon McLaughlin
I was on the train to work this morning and found myself thinking about your career post. I know you have pretty much already figured this out but the conclusion I came to was that your path to self actualisation is more complex than simple career orientation.
Yes, you clearly have the potential to be 'top dog' but that's not what motivates you (in my opinion). You have a multi faceted life and enjoy being a great dad, husband, prominent member of the local community.
Just because you have the potential to be CEO doesn't mean you have to realise it, especially at the detriment to the other parts of life. I always thought my Dad struck the right balance, he was a Director at AON and made very good money which benefited our family tremendously. He was also back home for 7 each night and actively got involved with our (my brother and I) extracurricular activities. I've no doubt he could have turned his £80,000 into £150,000 but once he got to a fairly strong point, titles and salaries got less important.
__________________
*****************************
Walk on
With hope in your heart
And You'll Never Walk Alone
*****************************
There's no free lunch, especially when it's served with special sauce (lostdog)
***************************** My Log - PC Plod
__________________ It all starts with the mind, but the thoughts, the intention aren't enough. Action needs to come next. Dream it, believe it, plan it, execute it, celebrate it. - Wendy
Oooooh Slumdog. Let us know what you think. I haven't seen it yet either.
Interesting realization that you have RE work/life balance. Not sure what to say about it but I am very interested in how this new position actually pans for you.
__________________
The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
But as a society, we're so fond of work… there's actually constantly this creeping in of "could you LOOK productive?" crap going around… and real success isn't the guy that is scurrying busily… real success is when all the plates are spinning at once and you're just sitting back and watching for when to add just a bit to one to keep it going. If you're frantic, it's falling apart.
Good thought. My paradigm from business school (see, even my vocabulary is doomed...) is that the type of active monitoring you describe is actually laziness. If you ain't spinning plates nonstop then you're slackin'. Or something like that.
It's tard but it's the old style of thinking I'm killing bit by bit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kfisherx
Oooooh Slumdog. Let us know what you think. I haven't seen it yet either.
Didn't make it to the movies Friday night. Sick kid and my granddad had a big health scare so we were planning for a weekend trip. Well, until the sick kid thing. Either way, we weren't going on a date. We stayed home and had pizza/DVD night (Space Buddies... groan...but it was for the kids, then later I watched A Tale of Two Siters, a Korean horror/thriller that creeped me out while everybody else slept).
Quote:
Originally Posted by MindPower
congrats on the success
your log always gets me thinking, thanks
Glad to hear that. Welcome to my world, where there's no such thing as overanalysis.
I did exercise today, too:
Prehab stuff
GHR
Bench pistols
Inverted rows
T-pushups
Scap work
And I'm predicting that I get no hits tonight in softball, and zero defensive plays. Because we don't play tonight. The games are Friday nights, not Mondays.
Lots of "one thing" moments today. Good stuff at work, I exercised, I've got some piano practice ideas and I plan on posting some food porn here in the log tonight for your enjoyment.
__________________ Megaloi -- My Blog
"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."
- Mignon McLaughlin
Dreaming with a Broken Heart by John Mayer -- pretty well got this one down; it's good for learning to sing and play at the same time
Fur Elise -- required for beginners, right?
Right Now by Van Halen -- just for fun and right-hand dexterity practice. Have it down but sometimes get stuck on left-hand chords and timing. Good for neuroplasticity.
Several random licks I can't remember right now. Also learning and practicing scales and am going through the "Alfred's" Adult Beginner book. It's just right for me, and gives me some structure at my own pace.
Looking at my next songs being stuff like Evanescence, DHT or even Hanson (that's right... bring it...). Journey will be required eventually.
For improv fun, I have Pete Sears' DVD. He's great at teaching just enough theory to have some fun and make things sound good.
My big-picture, end-all goal for now would just be to have the ability to play some rock/pop stuff my family knows so that we can enjoy music together, and be able to improv some basic things for us to create crazy and fun songs together. We really love music, and it's a shame none of us knows how to play an instrument.
__________________ Megaloi -- My Blog
"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."
- Mignon McLaughlin
So the food porn didn't get posted last night, but I have good justification. I got home and Jack was still not feeling well, and only got worse as the night went on. I walked the dogs, cooked dinner, washed the dishes, bathed the kids and then was done.
__________________ Megaloi -- My Blog
"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."
- Mignon McLaughlin
Ugh, taxes. I finally got all my paper statements and receipts together this morning. Granted, I've already done all the electronic stuff, which is 5% of the work but 95% of the payoff. Now for the grind.
Y'all hang in there. Spring is coming.
__________________ No Magic Pill (the log)
My Movember page (yes, I'm slacking on pictures)
1) Gotta have another tough meeting with my employee today. Why have I not fired him already, you may ask? I fired my last guy for less screwups for this, true. But this one happens to be the son of the CEO/founder/owner of our company. So worst I can do is transfer him. We're getting there.
2) Everybody stop with the freaking posturing for the new prez, already. To the guy who sent out a company-wide email with quotes from Paul Harvey yesterday... thanks, but no thanks. And to the lady who "replied all" this morning at 6:53 a.m., saying you loved listening to Paul Harvey during your early morning drive to work... I see what you did there. And it's not working. Just do your job and quit trying to impress us with your early hours. And why the hell did you reply all? What exactly was I supposed to gain from you saying you listen to Paul Harvey on the radio?
I don't get like this often, but people had better watch out today. I'm working hard, kicking ass, and am not willing to put up with slackers and posers this week if they get in my way. They can slack in their own office and let me work.
__________________ Megaloi -- My Blog
"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."
- Mignon McLaughlin
You should steal Otto's idea of caution tape. It's what he plans on using to get the interruptors and managers and other silly people to leave him alone. Gonna partition off a whole hall. heh.
Anyway, I'm sure that now that you know that reply-all-lady is up and at 'em in her desk at 7am, you'll pay her plenty more respect, and not think she's being so darn slacky when she takes her 2 hour lunches and leaves at 2pm.
1) Gotta have another tough meeting with my employee today. Why have I not fired him already, you may ask? I fired my last guy for less screwups for this, true. But this one happens to be the son of the CEO/founder/owner of our company. So worst I can do is transfer him. We're getting there.
2) Everybody stop with the freaking posturing for the new prez, already. To the guy who sent out a company-wide email with quotes from Paul Harvey yesterday... thanks, but no thanks. And to the lady who "replied all" this morning at 6:53 a.m., saying you loved listening to Paul Harvey during your early morning drive to work... I see what you did there. And it's not working. Just do your job and quit trying to impress us with your early hours. And why the hell did you reply all? What exactly was I supposed to gain from you saying you listen to Paul Harvey on the radio?
I don't get like this often, but people had better watch out today. I'm working hard, kicking ass, and am not willing to put up with slackers and posers this week if they get in my way. They can slack in their own office and let me work.
Of course you are saying this while wasting time on JP's.
Anyway, I'm sure that now that you know that reply-all-lady is up and at 'em in her desk at 7am, you'll pay her plenty more respect, and not think she's being so darn slacky when she takes her 2 hour lunches and leaves at 2pm.
The irony is that she actually is one of our good workers. She works on a failing product that might get cut, but I'd hire her onto my team if that happened.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregl515
Of course you are saying this while wasting time on JP's.
Touche!
__________________ Megaloi -- My Blog
"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."
- Mignon McLaughlin
Linear Mode
