Gone Fishing!

OK, just so you know, I am most assuredly NOT going to regale you with my fishing prowess.  This is a fishing story of another kind. This is about "catching" something way better than your everyday catfish, blue fish, drum or shark.

Some background is in order.  I grew up, more than anywhere else, in Maryland.  Many don't realize it but you can live way...I do mean WAY out in the country in Maryland.  It was 12 miles one way to my high school (up hill both ways without shoes into the wind…but I digress).  By and large, I loved it there.  I was surrounded by a wonderful family and... lots of dirt, air and water.  Back in those days, even though dinosaurs were still wandering the planet, we spent a bunch of time exploring the countryside.  It was utterly and completely normal to spend entire days gone exploring, wandering, and...yes...fishing!  We spent hours on the banks of the Susquehanna River fishing.  I couldn't begin to tell you how many hours we spent sitting on the bank, fishing pole in hand, exploring a world we'd never seen.  Here's the thing though, we sucked. 

We weren't bad.  We were awful. If I had to survive on what we caught, I would have turned into a bluegill or sunfish or worse yet, a worm, or a can of corn, because those were the only thing we ever caught.  You see, I was never taught to fish.  It was just Rob and I sitting on the bank, talking, imagining and fishing.  We were MUCH better at talking and imagining than fishing.  As I've grown older, I've continued talking and imagining.  I've stopped fishing.

Fast forward to 2009, Kyle, my oldest is driving, and, like Dad, he loves the outdoors.  (Just because I can't fish doesn't mean I don't love the outdoors.)  Unlike Dad, Kyle has managed to learn to fish because of some good friends and this little computer thingy called the internet.  Earlier this week, he caught a 40 lb fish down on Bolivar Peninsula just over an hour from our house. 

As his skills have continued to improve (along with the value of his tackle box) he's been inviting me to go fishing with him.  I love my kids, and I love spending time with them.  I try to do the stuff they want to do, and not just what Dad likes to do.  The thing is, I'm scarred-NOT scared…SCARRED!  Do you have any idea how many hours I spent NOT catching anything?  Has to be hundreds of hours - hundreds and hundreds of hours. 

UGH what's a man to do??? You already know the answer.  It's July 2011...We went fishing.  My wife is out of town on a girls trip, so it was just Kyle, Austin and I.  So off we went.  Three guys, a truck, too many fishing poles, too much tackle, a tent, man food and a kayak.  The weather, the drive, the conversation were wonderful.  We talked about girls, trucks, cars.  We talked about the weather and the tides, the stars and college.  Often times we talked about nothing.  I sat and watched my boys, I listened to the water crash on the beach.  We cooked on the grill and stared at the stars. 

I really wish I could tell you about all the fish we caught, but I can't.  I can tell you that we spent 24 hours just hanging out and I loved it.  Very soon, we'll be starting a new chapter as Kyle heads off to college.  I don't know how many more trips we're going to get to take like this one.  I don't know how much longer he'll be excited about taking Dad fishing, but I've got a license now, and well, who knows maybe, just maybe I'm finally going to learn to fish.

I couldn't care less about how many or how much fish we caught.  I caught 24 hours with my sons and that ladies and gentlemen is very...very cool.

This is so cool!

My name is Rich and I don’t know the first d@mn thing about blogging!  I started writing in high school and college.  Then, life took over.  I stopped writing short stories and poems and started writing operations orders, white papers and proposals.  I’ve written three books in my imagination, but, until a week ago, I hadn’t written anything remotely like a blog.  I’ve been reading the work of a former colleague ABOUT THE SAME and I just, simply, thoroughly enjoy what Megan writes.  It’s well written. It’s goofy. It makes me laugh.  It is wonderfully random.  It makes me think….AND….it inspired me to take out my pen er..computer and start writing.  

And write I have, I’ve secretly been storing up posts for months (OK, it was only three – as far as you know!), trying to decide if I had the courage, ambition, and time to try my hand at it.  Last weekend, a short 5 days ago I started.  WOW!  THIS IS COOL.  I have no idea how long this will last or where it will take me – but I like it.

So far, my posts have been a little more serious than I imagine they might be, but here’s the thing, they’re just sort of popping out…you know, like mushrooms emerging from a big pile of, um, fertilizer!  Not only that, but people ACTUALLY read what I write, I’ve even suckered YOU into hanging around for more than 200 words.  In a week, my posts have been viewed 140 times (even if I count for 50 of them that’s still a whole bunch).  I even have 3 people (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!) who have “subscribed.” Brave foolish souls that they are, they are actually, willfully sharing their time with me…because of what I write, because I JUST MIGHT say something that makes them laugh or smile, or think or reflect or just simply enjoy life. 

THIS IS SO COOL!  (He says as he feels his body drifting off into a teen like state of delirium, just without the body to go with it.)

I find myself wondering if there will be more of you.  What if MORE people read what I write?  What would that mean?  Would it be good?  What would it ffffeeeeelll like?  I think about blogging at random moments when interesting, good, bad, wonderful, horrible, special, awful, delicious, decadent things happen.  Yesterday, I realized two very important things. 1) I am really enjoying this.  If I am the only person who reads this, I want to keep doing it.  It is cathartic and it makes me happy.  2) I really like the idea that someone else might benefit in their own personal way because of something I write.  THAT IS SO COOL!

All of which leads me to this.   I really ought to learn about blogging, and hash tags and tweets and retweets and all of that stuff that “real bloggers” know about… BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY…

What could you be doing that would bring you great joy in your life.  Remember, back in the day when you sang, danced, drew, painted, ran, lifted, swam, wrote Haikus, or just sat and read. Don’t you miss it?  What if you gave yourself 30 minutes a day or every other day to do whatever it is that makes you happy for no reason whatsoever except that it makes you happy?  Just think a week from now, you could be sitting there with The Guy, or The Gal in the mirror having a cup of coffee smiling and a silently saying to yourself…THAT IS SO COOL!

PS Wanna know a secret???  My 11 year old daughter gets to read my blogs before you do. She likes it…and friends….THAT is WWWWWAAAAAAYYYYY  CCCCOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLL!

Dad's Rules

I am a Dad.  I hope a good one.  Sometimes I THINK I am a good one but ALWAYS I HOPE I am a good one.  You see not one single child of mine came with an instruction manual. Ssshhh it’s a secret, I’ve totally been making it up for years now…I haven’t a clue what I am doing. 

My kids are everything to me.  NOW, before this goes any further, let me clarify, my wife is everything to me too, but this isn’t about being a husband, it is about being a Dad.  Maybe one day I’ll be bold enough to write about being a husband, but I’ve been a husband long enough to doubt that will ever actually happen.

OK - back to the matter at hand.  In addition to being a Dad, I am a mortal.  I am going to be here until I am not.  Don’t get me wrong, I “plan” to be a here a very long time, but the fact of the matter is none of us KNOW how long we are going to be here.  A few years ago, I was reflecting on this and I started building a list of Dad’s Rules.  We discuss them on special occasions and I share them here for two reasons: 1) I am not sure if I’ve ever meaningfully written them down and 2) I wonder what your rules are. 

Let me be clear, Dad’s Rules have nothing whatsoever to do with doing your homework, clean underwear (in case you’re in an accident) or taking out the garbage.  They have nothing to do with the parent-child relationship.  Dad’s Rules are my rules for being a good human.  They are my rules for living a whole and fulfilled life.  The idea is simple, if you let these guide you, everything else will become a little easier.

Here Goes!

1) Treat others with love, kindness and respect.  It is easy to say, but so very hard to do.  The fact of the matter is that there are people on this planet that don’t like me, let alone love me. More than one person has been unkind, and I assure there is a long list of people who don’t respect me.  So???

I have found that when I treat others with love, kindness and respect, the list of those who treat me the same way continues to grow. 

There is a famous military quote “Schofield’s Definition of Discipline” which I still quote to myself in more trying moments.

“The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army. It is possible to impart instruction and to give commands in such a manner and such a tone of voice to inspire in the soldier no feeling but an intense desire to obey, while the opposite manner and tone of voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disobey. The one mode or the other of dealing with subordinates springs from a corresponding spirit in the breast of the commander. He who feels the respect which is due to others cannot fail to inspire in them regard for himself, while he who feels, and hence manifests, disrespect toward others, especially his inferiors, cannot fail to inspire hatred against himself.”

Most important though, each morning I wake up, find my way to the bathroom and look in the mirror.  Every single day the same guy looks back at me and begs me for a cup of coffee.    I’ve known this guy for as long as I have a memory.   I like him; he’s a pretty good guy.  Imperfect.  Flawed.  Capable of great kindness and horrible mistakes.   He is my biggest fan and my worst critic.  He’s helped me achieve great things, and he’s been there at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey on more than one occasion.  I’ve tried keeping secrets from the guy, but the fact is, he knows it all.  He knows everything about me, even when we don’t talk about it.  He knows what makes me happy, proud, joyful, mean, angry, and ticked-off.   He has been there through it all, every step of the way and, well, here’s the thing, I have found unequivocally, that if I treat others with love, kindness and respect, handing the guy a cup of coffee every morning is just a little easier.  No, upon reflection…it is a lot easier.

2) Make Great decisions and repeat as necessary.  Life is the sum of your decisions.  It is no more or no less complicated.  NONE of us will make the right decision for our entire life.  Each of us has made dozens upon dozens of bad decisions and mistakes.  (Damn I wish I could count mine using dozens…hundreds is more like it! Thousands?) The trick is to hone your decision making skills so that you make fewer and few mistakes.  The trick is to NOT make life altering decisions or career ending decisions.  The trick is to LEARN from your both your good and bad decisions and to use that learning to make better decisions tomorrow.  The trick is to learn from your mistakes and to have the courage to go make new ones, so that, ultimately, you are making mostly great decisions. 

3) Work ethic and attitude will always be more important than your natural gifts.   Each of us is blessed with a unique set of gifts.    By and large most humans are capable of infinitely more than they give themselves credit for; it is our work ethic and attitude that dictate how much of our human potential we can actually achieve.  (mental note blog topic on potential).   

4) It is often better to be happy than right.  Now listen, I am competitive.  I am committed to winning, pretty much everything.  I am also smart enough to be right…often.  You know what though. WHO CARES???  Is it worth it?  Let me put it another way, ever heard of a “cost benefit analysis”? Do you have any idea how many arguments could be avoided by simply taking the time to assess the value of the win vs. the cost of the win? Here’s another view of it…If you have to violate rule #1 “Treat others with love, kindness and respect,” in order to get the win, is the win worth it?  Honestly, this is probably the hardest rule of them all because it requires split second, no, nanosecond CONSCIOUS decision making – typically at a time of emotional distress. 

I would never suggest that someone ought not fight for what they believe in, uphold their values, and ethics.  I am absolutely suggesting that some of us, most of us, have argued, and hurt one another, over some of the most ridiculous, obtuse, meaningless, frivolous, inconsequential, utterly, incomprehensibly nonsensical bits of nothingness.  STOP IT!  Please?

Until now, those have been my four rules and my hopefully coherent explanation of those rules.  I think by and large, my kids do a pretty good job of “getting” them.  I hope so.  I hope that I do a reasonably good job of living by these rules on a day in and day out basis and demonstrating them through the way that I live.  There is that word again…hope.  With it comes the new, until now, always important but less poorly communicated rule #5.

Bonus Rule #5) Be faithful and hopeful.  Life is full of promise.  It is also full of twists and turns, bumps and bruises.   Faith in something greater than yourself and hope for what might be are drugs no man should live without.  Life is bigger than we are.   It’s too complex and too fast paced.  How many of us have wandered smack dab into the middle of a wall that was apparently in surmountable.  Yet somehow, some way, we prevailed.  Not only that but, the effort of overcoming the obstacle made us stronger, better, and more successful.    Really, when you think about it, do faith and hope really need any kind of explanation? 

                                                                                                                              

There you have it.  That’s it…at least from me.  I genuinely believe that if I can teach my kids these 5 rules, I will have been reasonably successful.  Sure, they’ll need physics and Econ, chemistry, Spanish and Chinese, but, honestly, I am just not up to the task. I will leave that to the smart people in education.  I’m sticking to the basics.  If I am here a day, a week, or another hundred years, these are the things I want my kids to learn from dear ole’ Dad.  

How about you, what do you want your loved ones, your family, your kids your friends to know?  Did I miss something?  What are your rules? What do your kids know that mine need to know?  I’m open to suggestion…

(hhhmmm…was that another blog thought crossing my mind?)

As good as you let it!

It occurred to me yesterday as I was finally making my first post that I hadn’t really put enough time into naming this little venture.  I ended up with “As good as you let it” for a multitude of reasons.  

It could have been “Unvarnished” which is where most of us like to reside, in our “natural state” without the veneer that we wear each day.  There are problems with this though.  Unvarnished, we’ll age a little too quickly, we’re susceptible to spills, dents and dings much more so than when we have our veneer on.  Unvarnished, it is much more easy to see the “real” us, knots, defects, imperfections, all of it, raw and exposed.  I happen to accept my veneer, it is part of me.  It does not dominate me, make me unreal or deceitful. 

Let’s use another word, let’s call it our “uniform.”  When a ball player steps onto the field he wears the correct uniform.  We all accept this as part of the game.  It doesn’t change the man playing the game; it is what he wears when he plays the game.  To the extent that a person is genuine to himself (or herself), the uniform is meaningless. 

So for me, unvarnished is just a bit to angry, it suggests there is a disconnect between my corporate self and my “real self.”  There isn’t.

“Make it a great day”

Many people have received an email from me with the closing, “Make it a great day,” I did this for years, how many I can’t recall.  It was a deliberate attempt to remind people to do their best to make each day the best that it can be. (Cue Army commercial).  I like this; it works for me.  As I’ve continued to mature? Age? Grow?  (Mental note for another Blog topic) I’ve become less comfortable with it though.  Why? 

Let’s start with the definition of make:  “to cause to exist, occur, or appear.”  So then we could change “make it a great day” to “cause a great day to exist.”   Bear with me here, I believe we can MAKE great things happen; we can MAKE great coffee; we can make a great financial decision; we can even make great love (well hopefully anyway! J ) but can we make a great day?  I don’t think so.  I think most of the days, most of the time are already great.  Name your spiritual leader, God, Buddha, Allah, ( I will not engage you in religious debate. I respect you and your views and ask you to respect mine.)  I believe he or she or it or they made it great.  Our responsibility is not to MAKE it a great day…  Our responsibility is to LET it be a great day.

You see there is greatness in your life.  You are surrounded by it.  It is a smile, a wink, a flirt, a kiss.  It is a project well done.  Greatness is all around you.  Don’t believe me, lay your ear upon the chest of one you love and listen to her heart beat.  Watch a child laugh out loud – the real-down-to-the-marrow-of-your-being kind of laugh.  Savor a sip of wine, or the sweet taste of hard work coming to a successful fruition. 

So, my email closing no longer says “make it a great day.”  Quite frankly, you’re just not big enough to MAKE it a great day.  It now says “All the best” which means that I wish you all of the best that life has to offer.  I wish you joy, success and wellness.  Most of all, I wish you the wisdom to understand that every day of your life will be AS GOOD AS YOU LET IT be.

Keep working and striving and climbing and hoping and dreaming.  Just don’t ever….EVER stop savoring the greatness along the way.  The more you recognize it, the more you’ll have.

Chasing the Brassring…

 

This whole blogging thing started because I’ve always wanted to write and a former colleague “About the Same” has been writing a blog about her experiences as she goes through her own personal career change.  Like me she was in advertising. Like me, she gave up that career to pursue something she loved.  In her case it was teaching.  In my case, I left the security and comfort of my work in Human Resources at my current employer to pursue sales for the company.  In some ways you could call this my “brass ring.”  More than a few dozen people think I am a raving lunatic for making this kind of a transition at this stage of my career.  I was “set” in my previous role.  Well respected, I had a large staff and a meaningful budget, heck I even had a really great admin, who, even with all of her kinks and curiosities, I adored because she took care of me, did what I asked of her and really cared about making me shine.  (Her biggest kink/curiosity…she liked working with me…TALK ABOUT WEIRD!!)  I EVEN let her edit my grammar…talk about trust!

NOW, I am MR Junior guy on the totem pole again.  Heck, at the moment, I am not even selling, I am a coordinator.  If this sounds like a step back, well that’s simply because it is.  In the words of my darling daughter who stopped by “cube” and said…”what happened to your office?  You got downgraded!” 

Or did I?

You see, I love selling.  I love putting deals together and solving client problems. I love change; I look for things that are broken, or need to be broken; I finish breaking them; I help fix them.   I arrived at my employer as a sales person.  At the time I was selling advertising to HR.  I spent 4 years changing things from inside the organization.  I loved what I was doing.  I REALLY Loved it.  I could go back to doing it tomorrow and I would have a great time.  There was only ONE tiny eensy little teeny weenie thing missing.  I wasn’t directly creating profit for the company.  So here I am out on the end of a long limb, swaying in the breeze, from time to time hanging on by a few fingers.  Only time will tell if I am brilliant or a stark raving lunatic.  That said, I won’t wander the planet going… “I wonder what would happen if I would’ve…”

For me, I needed to do this because I’ve raised my kids telling them that they can do anything they set their mind too.  I’ve told them that they should wake up in the morning loving life and loving what they’re doing.  I’ve told them that if they want to realize real success in life they should find something that they love doing and then they should go do it as well as they possibly can.  This is something that I wanted to do for quite some time.  Heck it was an idea that was largely nurtured by our SVP of HR.

So I’ve taken some steps back, I’ve been “downgraded” according to appearances, but the fact of the matter is that I haven’t been downgraded at all…not from a big picture perspective.  I’ve opened up the door to a whole new world of opportunities that would not have been possible if I hadn’t been willing to climb out here on this little branch.  In the not distant future, I fully expect to become part of our company’s sales team.  I don’t know EXACTLY when that will be, but in the grand scheme of things, it will only be several blinks of an eye.  I’ll be the new guy again, but I’ll be doing something that I love – something that I am pretty good at and I’ll be doing what I tell my kids to do. Pursue your dreams and goals and you can do anything you choose to do. 

How about you, what’s your brass ring?  What do you want to do? Hope to do?  Can you get there from here?  What are you willing to do to grasp it?

That's it for today...I look forward to your feedback!