All posts in the Reflection category
Each year at Christmas time, my family watches through a cultivated list of favorite Christmas movies. We know them almost by heart. Occasionally, we’ll add a new one. However, the list doesn’t grow too much (and it certainly does not include the litany of Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies. . .bleah!).
Today (and tomorrow), I am faced with “Found Days.” That is, I was supposed to be heading off to a race with my wife and “out of the office” for a couple of days. While I would have had my trusty laptop with me and could get some things done, there would have been limits.
Earlier in my career, I was a regional dean for Indiana Wesleyan University. During a significant portion of that assignment, I was responsible for the Cleveland Education Center (Ohio) as well as the Louisville Education Center (Kentucky). For those not familiar with that part of the country, that’s about a four-hour drive between the two. During that time period, I would switch back and forth between being onsite at each location: one week in Cleveland, one week in Louisville.
I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve had this conversation as a parent with my children. Sometimes it has been about examples that are in front of my children as teachers or leaders. . .sometimes it’s about me. I tell them as we’re reflecting on the situation and can find very little positive that happened: “I’m sorry but you’re going to have to learn from the negative on this one. You’re going to have to see what not to do and learn to do the right thing.”
In our household, the end of the year can be an extremely busy time (I’m sure we’re the only ones, right?!?). Not only do we have the normal holiday rush, my wife’s company often has rush work at the end of the year. As a result, there is always the likelihood that she will be racing to get everything done and reports written for clients. The question for us becomes, “what is really important that has to get done and what can wait?”
For most of my life, I’ve been an optimist. In high school, I was even given a character award for it. As an entrepreneur, I’m a rugged optimist…I think my ideas are good enough and better than what I see out in the field. . .and will succeed. And if those ideas don’t work, I’m sure we’ll figure out another way to get the job done. As I’ve aged, I’ve probably moved a bit left to realism as a measure of what can affect my ideas (particularly when I haven’t done the hard work of developing a plan around them). However, I still maintain that positive outlook about what can be and what is coming.