Be Kind, Be Kind, Be Kind

 As I noted in my previous blog post, "Braving the Wilderness", somewhere along the way, probably in the midst of reading "Living Untethered" highlighted below, I softened my view, I came to realize how special each and every student was, and what each of them brought to the classroom.  There's no doubt, it is quite the menagerie of personalities, abilities and work habits, but they are all special.

I came to realize that about many of my colleagues around campus.  I struggled at first with some of the interaction, I was used to the corporate environment where if you sent an e-mail, a question or request, you got a reply back, usually, relatively promptly.  I had many instances where I wouldn't get any replies at all.  I finally gave up and would just walk across campus and go talk to the person, which was probably what I should have been doing in the first place.

In any event, the following is the message I sent my students at the end of the year.  I also sent it to some of my colleagues, who had been particularly helpful supporting me through my first semester.  

Michael Singer got me started, he has some beautiful passages in "Living Untethered", it took me back to my favorite sermon from Dr. Tom Long, "Be Kind, Be Kind, Be Kind", which I heard over 30 years ago, and wore out a cassette tape, playing it over and over again.  And how could I ever go wrong quoting one of my greatest heroes, Mr. Rogers?

Final Thoughts

As we close the semester and head into the holiday season, I’ll leave you with a few thoughts.  Most of what I ever come up with isn’t original, I love to quote my favorite authors, theologians, heroes. 

From Michael Singer in “Living Untethered”:

“The mind continually grasps on to what is coming into your senses, it focuses on thoughts, emotions.  When you quiet the mind, you can truly see the incredibly beautiful person inside of you.  God made you and God made you beautiful.”

From my favorite sermon from Dr. Tom Long:

“Kindness is a refusal to look at other people in the light of how they are in the present tense and an insistence on looking at them in the light of what God is making of them in God’s future.  To put it bluntly, kindness is an act of civil disobedience.  It’s a refusal to treat people according to the customs and the mores and the traditions of the status quo of the world around us and an insistence on seeing them and treating them in light of who they will become in God’s future.”

And from one of my greatest heroes, Mr. Rogers:

“You’ve made this day a special day by just your being you.  There’s no person in the whole world like you.  And I like you just the way you are.”

Finally, one last comment from Dr. Long:

“There are only three things important in human life: be kind, be kind, be kind.”

See the incredibly beautiful person inside of you.  See the beauty of everything, and everyone, around you.  And be kind, including, especially, to yourself.

Have a great holiday.

Braving the Wilderness

“You are only free when you realize you belong no place – you belong every place – no place at all.  The price is high.  The reward is great.” Dr. Maya Angelou

As many of you know, I embarked on a new journey a few months ago, shedding the corporate life that I’ve lived for close to forty years to find my dharma, to find where I belong.  Spoiler alert, I’m not sure I found my dharma, and I learned a lot about belonging, in many ways, particularly from reading Brene Brown’s “Braving the Wilderness” and the quote above from Dr. Angelou.  Most importantly, I learned a great deal about myself, or maybe I re-learned some things about myself, and found out some new things that somehow I never knew in my 63 years on this earth.

Old Dog, Old Tricks

Sadly, in some ways, I just haven’t changed.  I still overcome my lack of organizational skills with brute force and over-preparation.  As I started out the semester, I would go in early, stay late, and work on accounting problems all day from the chapters in each of the courses I was teaching.  Thankfully, I was able to sprinkle in some classes in between, or potentially I would have gone completely insane. 

I would sit in my office, doing problem after problem, moving from textbook to textbook, online problem to online problem, wearing myself out each day.  On weekends, the process was the same, the only difference was I was doing it sitting in the backroom of the house.  Continually, working problem after problem.

In the process, I discovered a new variant of a recent disease – Accounting Problem Foggy Brain.  I found that doing hours and hours of accounting problems led me to this dull, numbing sensation where I really couldn’t think clearly anymore.  I’d do a problem, I’d check the answer, and no matter how easy the problem was, I’d get it wrong.  I’d get so angry at myself, how in the world could you possibly have gotten that wrong?  It didn’t matter, my brain was just too foggy.  Now, a smarter person may have walked away, but I would go right back at it, and try again. 

Eventually, as I would discuss this with Laurel, she would have some suggestions, like, why don’t you get up and take a walk around campus?  Do you really have to go in first thing in the morning?  Why don’t you work a little from home, and then go in?  Why don’t you go to the Library or somewhere else and do some work from there?  Hmmm, maybe she has a point? 

I did eventually take some of her advice, once in a while, I would go for a walk during the day, enjoy the beauty of the campus, not nearly enough, but I did.  I did start going in a bit later on some days, I’d do some work at home to break it up a bit, which helped.  I’d give my head a chance to clear on my drive to work.  Weekends were still painful, I’d work hour upon hour straight, doing accounting problem after accounting problem.  While I know this may be everyone’s dream, they can get a bit old after a while.

So I learned, or re-learned, that yet again, my standard way of addressing any task or issue is to just work myself into the ground no matter how efficient, or inefficient, that process is.

Well I Never Expected That

It didn’t come to the surface immediately, but after a few weeks I had a brand new discovery, and something I never expected – I was really lonely.

It took me a while to figure it out, and as noted, I never expected it.  I’ve been an introvert all my life, so I didn’t really think or believe human interaction was that important to me, but I found out, the hard way, that it was.

Outside of my time in the classroom, which really isn’t as much human interaction as it is presentation, I didn’t have much human interaction.  I had spent the last 40 years or so working in organizations, with people, in teams, and I spent a lot of time interacting with my personnel, colleagues, customers, vendors, whomever.  When I was a CFO or General Manager, I would consciously walk the shop floor or throughout the building talking to people in the organization.  I always believed that this was part of my responsibility, making sure the people working there, doing the value-added jobs, could see me, talk to me, tell me any issues or problems they were having.

I discovered that it wasn’t just out of a sense of duty I did this, it was because I needed that interaction.  I used to love to write “words of wisdom” on Marci’s whiteboard and wait for her to come in and read it, and then we’d laugh and laugh about it.  I loved to twist Yelena’s ponytail and hear her yell a fake “Ow!”.  I loved to ask Szabo, how’s it going today, and almost, without fail, hearing “It’s all jacked up”, and then find out why it was all jacked up.  I loved to quote “Stepbrothers” to Jillian, listen to Nancy say, “here’s what I’m going to tell you…”, hear Bernadette laugh, try to convince Jessica she needed another cat, tell Becky “make it so, Number One!” 

I found that the university setting is kind of like a bunch of independent contractors working in the same place.  We see each other, we have some interaction, but for the most part, we all do our own thing.  Most don’t get the sheer joy of doing accounting problems all day, but they probably do some other, more mundane, tasks each day.  There’s just not a whole lot of interaction amongst us, and we all go about our business and go home each day, to start over again the next day. 

As noted, I learned something new about myself, something I never expected.  I never realized how much that social interaction meant to me, until it was gone.  I couldn’t believe on a campus full of people, how lonely I could feel and how hard that was for me.

Other Than That Mrs. Lincoln, How Was the Play?

Most importantly, I really enjoyed the classroom, and I enjoyed the students.  Of course, it wasn’t perfect, I’m sure I was a bit rusty in the classroom, it had been about six years since I taught, and I learned along the way some things I’ll do differently in the Spring, but overall, I enjoyed being in the classroom and teaching.

The students were a box of chocolates, a mix of very good and driven to not so much.  It’s funny, even though I would get frustrated with some of them at times, I grew to appreciate each of them for what they brought to the classroom.  I have a second post coming that highlights this, but I came to realize that each of us is unique, and we all bring something to the table, and I need to appreciate what each student brings to the table, and for that matter, what each person anywhere brings to the table.  Not always easy.

I found along the way that I need to set goals for myself, and my teaching, but not set goals or expectations that I have no control over.  Actually, I can’t give myself that credit, it was something that Hailey pointed out to me.  I told her that my goals were that I would educate my students the best I possibly could on accounting and business, and that they would get as good of a grade as they hoped or expected.  As she noted, I can set goals or expectations for myself, those things I have control over, but if it involves my students, that can only be a hope or wish that this happens.  I don’t have complete control over it.

My biggest joy?  I taught three yoga classes on campus, all in the same week.  This may seem like nothing to many, but it was everything to me.  To set the scene, for Wellness Week, the JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) Council wanted to have two yoga classes for students.  They asked me, since they knew I was technically, a yoga teacher.  I was going to chicken out, and ask Laurel to do it, but she is currently teaching a bazillion classes a week, and I knew she couldn’t.  So I agreed to teach the classes.  Then another student asked if I could teach a class for the one dorm the same week.  Sure, why not, what’s one more.

Surprisingly, I was incredibly calm, I was so nervous ever thinking about teaching a class, but once I “had to”, and didn’t have a choice, I wasn’t afraid.  While I’m sure my classes weren’t perfect, I really felt like they went really well.  One of my students from my Cost Accounting class, Jadelyn, came to all three of my classes, which I was deeply thankful for, and it made me feel so much more comfortable knowing at least one student in the room.  And, I’m so excited to say, we just started a Yoga Club on campus, and I’m going to be the Advisor for it.

Belonging

Somewhere, early in the semester, I had read “Braving the Wilderness”, and I put it back on the shelf once I was done with it.  I really enjoyed the book, and I learned a lot about belonging, as I have from other Brene Brown books, but it wasn’t until just a few weeks ago that the lesson became clearer. 

I’m not sure why, but I pulled the book off the shelf, I think I was looking for a quote in the book, and I stumbled on the subtitle for the book:

The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

The first part, I get, I’ve been trying to figure out where I truly belong all of my career, and really haven’t figured that out.  And potentially, I never will.  The second part is what hit me, and I can’t believe I never noticed it or let it sink in.  What I lack is the courage to stand alone.  That’s what I’ve been missing, and I don’t know why I never even noticed that on the cover of the book, maybe I didn’t want to see it, but now, I have, and now, I know.

To grant myself a bit of kindness, again, second post coming, I think I’m starting to see that, and I’m starting to live it.  Embarking on a brand new journey took some courage, and no doubt, I’ve learned, in many ways, I’m standing alone.  Taking on teaching a yoga class, that definitely pushed my courage levels.  And I’m pursuing other possible avenues, other ways to stand alone.  Some may pan out, some may not, but at least I’m venturing out and using my courage to stand alone.  We’ll see where it takes me.

The price is high.  The reward is great.

Expressing Gratitude to WIKA Upon My Departure

 “Every man has a vocation to be someone: but he must understand clearly that in order to fulfill this vocation he can only be one person: himself.”

I come from an era where you were taught to stay with a company all your life.  I know, that has all changed.  Still, when I was at Barco, I bled Barco red, and I thought I would retire from there.  After 13+ years, I left for WIKA.  As I’m coming up on 15 years at WIKA, again, I’m saying goodbye.  I never thought this would happen, I thought for sure I’d retire from WIKA, but we’ll get to that later.  Most importantly, I want to express my gratitude to WIKA.  This has been an unbelievable journey, I never imagined something like this after leaving Barco, I never thought I’d work at such a great company again, but thankfully I did.  So, in no particular order, what I’m grateful for:

• An amazing owner.  Mr. Wiegand is brilliant, he somehow is able to foresee what the future holds for our industry, he knows the business better than anyone, but he also is incredibly kind and generous to his people.  I really couldn’t imagine a better owner or leader to work for.

• Very bright and ingenious engineering teams.  I thought I worked with the best engineers in the world at Barco, but the engineers at WIKA are incredible also.  In many ways, it’s different, it encompasses manufacturing engineering, along with some innovative design engineering, and it's just a great group of people to work with.  I’m constantly in awe at how smart some of these people are.

• An outstanding accounting and controlling team.  I was blessed to work with a great group that always went above and beyond.  My team was so good, I often thought and said, they really don’t need me, and to be honest, they didn’t.  They could run the financial side of the business on their own, and they always looked for how they could do even better.  Plus, as you can see, they were so much fun.

• A fun and dynamic Senior Management Team.  For many years, I just loved the Senior Management Team I was a part of.  We challenged each other, fought many times, pushed each other, and really had a great deal of fun together.  I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced such a great working relationship as we had for several years together, I really enjoyed and appreciated each of my colleagues for who they are and what they brought to the table.

• One of the two greatest leaders I’ve ever worked with in my life.  Michael Gerster is larger than life.  I’ve worked for two amazing leaders in my life, Michael and Jim Crane from Barco.  They are extremely different, but still, two of the best ever.  I used to say, I would run through a wall for Michael Gerster.  He spent so much time on the shop floor and throughout the building, he knew virtually everyone, and showed his appreciation for the people working there, he had a special presence about him.

• My colleagues in Latin America and my opportunity to travel there.  I spent about five years working with my colleagues in Latin America, and those were some of the best years of my life.  I learned what beautiful people and beautiful countries there were in that part of the world.  I was able to meet and work with some incredible people, and I can’t be thankful enough.  I will always cherish that experience.

• My colleagues in Lawrenceville.  I spent over 12 years there, and besides my team, there are so many great people there, particularly the people on the shop floor.  I used to love to walk the shop floor, and interact with the “value added” people.  They are the ones that make it all happen.

• The wonderful people at WIKA Sensor Technology.  It may be trite to say, but they are the salt of the earth.  There are so many moments I could highlight or illustrate, but what hit me most was when we moved into our new building, various people would be on their hands and knees, scraping tape off the floor, wiping down walls, doing anything and everything, without being asked, to make the place look presentable.  It is just an amazing group.  They would do anything they could for those lucky enough to work with them.  Leaving them is going to be very painful.

Of course, this would all beg the question, why in the world would I leave?  I have a few years left of working, why wouldn’t I take the traditional road and just finish my time at WIKA and ride off into the sunset?  My current boss, Todd Gardner, has been incredibly good to me.  I have so much respect for him, we left him with a complete shithole when he took over as President of WIKA Americas, and in the past few years, he has built it back up again, and made it into a vibrant organization.  No, he didn’t do it completely on his own, but his leadership, his vision, his business sense has been a big part of it.  Plus, he’s treated me very well, I really couldn’t ask for more.

It’s Not You, It’s Me

I remember many years ago, when I started my career at Touche Ross, before it eventually became Deloitte Touche and eventually Deloitte, we did a Myers-Briggs Personality exercise among our management team.  As we sat there with the facilitator, she put a line up on the board with many X’s clustered together on one end, and one X way off on the other end.  The X’s represented how we all tested.  Immediately several heads started shaking up and down, and a few of them said, “McCullough”.  Yes, I was the one who didn’t belong.

After 40 years of not belonging, of constantly being the salmon swimming upstream, I’ve grown weary, and I’m tired of not belonging.  Yes, I could continue to do this, I’ve somehow made at least a relatively good career while not belonging, I’ve worked for some of the best companies in the world, Deloitte, Barco, WIKA, and I’ve gotten to experience and be a part of some amazing journeys.  

Yes, the easy course, maybe the safest, and smartest, course would be to just keep on doing what I’m doing.  But something changed, something snapped, I couldn’t just keep on keeping on, I decided at 62, before it’s all too late, I need to be me, I need to do something I truly enjoy, and do what’s best for me.  I need to find my dharma, my true nature in life.

As I pondered this decision, I latched on to the guilt of leaving Todd, leaving my colleagues, leaving the group at WIKA Sensor Technology.  As I discussed it with Hailey, she asked, “What do the people closest to you think?”  So I asked them, Laurel, my children, my brother Jim, Sheila Ewers, Hailey, what do you think?

This is just a snippet of some of the responses I got back:

• You will be so good at this Steve!  It’s OK to be uncomfortable with change.  If it’s what you truly desire, take a deep breath, acknowledge the discomfort, and do it anyway.  The guilt and fear will fall away quickly once you have begun.

• Most of the people you’re feeling guilty about will be happy that you’re moving on to something better.

• You will enjoy that and that is so important.  Good for you!

• Would you rather feel guilt and shame or regret?

I sent those on to Hailey, and her reply was, “Seems like a no-brainer to me.”

Tell Me, What Is It You Plan To Do With Your One Wild and Precious Life?

What changed?  What brought me to this point after so many years?  Not sure but:  

• Maybe it was Laurel starting me on my yoga journey six years ago.  As I often say when I begin a

yoga class, “Thank you for bringing me here”.  One of the best decisions of my life.

• Maybe it was when I began my journey with Hailey about five years ago, and I learned how to walk in the dark and realize it’s simply a part of the journey.

• Maybe it was all the reading, Brene Brown, Rolf Gates, Naomi Levy, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Glennon Doyle, Valerie Kaur, Jack Kornfield, Michael Singer, Stephen Cope, so many great writings that inspired me to be me.  

• Maybe it was taking my Yoga Teacher Training last year in the Georgia Mountains with Sheila, Tami Roberts and the Chocolate Poet Society.   I never thought I could do it, and I never have experienced such a feeling of belonging in my life.

• Maybe it was taking a Pranayama and Meditation workshop at the same beautiful house with Sheila, Laurel and a wonderful group of young ladies this year.  I know people will think I’m crazy, but I believe I experienced God in an incredible meditation moment.

• Maybe it was being inspired by an amazing 28-year-old young lady, Carley DeMarco, who seems to see no barriers to trying new things and making them work.

A few months ago, I got approached by Vistage, it’s an organization that does training and coaching for business leaders.  They were inquiring if I’d be interested in becoming a Vistage Chair.  I had been a part of Vistage years ago, when I first started at WIKA.  I reached out to my former Vistage Chair, Lisa Dugan, and asked her advice.  One question she asked me was, “what do you want to do with the rest of your life?”

My immediate reaction, in my mind, was “I want to start a yoga studio!”

Spoiler alert, that’s not what I’m doing.  I have formulated a new plan, a new idea on that path, but it’s not fleshed out yet.  So, not yet.  Stay tuned.

But it got me thinking, what do I really want to do with the rest of my life?  Quite obviously, I don’t have much time left, at best 5-7 years left of working, and that is probably a stretch.  

I started looking for universities that might give me an opportunity to teach.  For seven years, while with WIKA in Georgia, I taught at Georgia Gwinnett College as an adjunct professor in the evenings, and I loved it.  Surprisingly, someone was interested, and I got an interview.  As I started the interview process, I found out one of the people on the search committee, Dr. Lindsey Mason, was from Georgia and had done some course work at GGC.  Serendipity.

I now start on a new journey, I will be an Accounting Professor at Ohio Dominican University.  I just loved when I read the section on their website that talked about Peace and Justice that said:

• Ohio Dominican University is committed to promoting peace and justice in the world by acting justly ourselves and by educating students to become ethical and effective leaders in the global society, grounded in the pursuit of truth, justice and peace.

When I took Laurel over to the campus on Memorial Day, it was so peaceful, it was quiet, only a few campus security personnel to be seen.  As we walked the path, we looked ahead, and we were shocked to see a baby deer lying under a bench, trying to get some relief from the intense sun that day.  Even as we got close to it, it didn’t move.  The calm, the peace, the beauty, the serenity of the campus moved us both, and we decided this was the next place for me.

Will this be where I finish my career?  Who knows?  Maybe I will start a yoga studio, or maybe I’ll become a Vistage chair, or maybe I’ll do something else where I’ll feel like I belong in my one wild and precious life.  The quote comes from a poem by Mary Oliver, and recently when Laurel and I were on a yoga retreat in the south of France, Sheila used it in one of our practices.  I had heard the quote before, but somehow it settled in quite nicely for me.  Yes, this is my one wild and precious life, and it’s time to embrace it and be who I want to be, and hopefully, just maybe, I’ll find where I belong.

A Brand New Day

 

A Return to Old School

 It All Started With Jack….

As many of you know, I have a serious monkey on my back.  OK, I probably have a whole barrel of monkeys on my back, but this particular monkey is Starbucks.  As I’ve shared, my daily routine always included a stop at Starbucks for my morning coffee.  I had my “home” Starbucks, I’d go each morning, I’d also get a drink for Laurel, and we’d go there together on weekends.  Oftentimes, I’d supplement at lunch time and go to my “work” Starbucks for another round of caffeine.  For those who are old like me, I was kind of like Norm at Cheers, the baristas could start making my drink as I walked through the parking lot.

Now, you may have thought that being diagnosed and having to deal with Crohn’s Disease may have cured my bad habit, but no, I just had to adjust my routine, no more dairy, I had to substitute non-dairy options.  Crohn’s was just a minor speed bump on my quest to feed my coffee addiction at Starbucks.

But something more dreadful did cure me, and led me to abandon Starbucks.  Lousy customer service.  Not just bad customer service, but really, really lousy customer service.  When we moved from Georgia to Ohio, I had to find new Starbucks, and I was able to quickly find a “home” Starbucks and a “work” Starbucks.  Similar to Dorothy not being in Kansas anymore, I sure as hell wasn’t in Georgia anymore.  I’m not sure which location was worse, but the tipping point came when I stood at the counter of the one location for several minutes when finally a young lady came to the counter and said, “Do you want to place an order or something?”  Hmmm, maybe not.

For those of you who don’t read my blog (the entire population minus my Mom and Laurel), you don’t

know I wrote a blog way back in 2019 about the merits of great customer service, and I highlighted my home Starbucks, and the outstanding job they did there at customer service.  The title of the blog was “Mary’s Gone Old School On Us!” because Mary had gone old school, she was outstanding at customer service, as were her colleagues, at that particular Starbucks.  To me the secret to great customer service is getting to know your customers, making them feel welcome, and treating them with kindness and compassion.  If you do, as long as you have a reasonably good product, they’ll keep coming back.  And if you haven’t figured it out, I have a passion for customer service, I believe it’s critical for our businesses, it’s critical for our economy.

Well, I was cured.  I came close to cutting up my gold Starbucks card, which I had carried since 2008, and sending it back to Starbucks to let them know that I was cured, don’t expect any more card refills from me.  And then Jack happened…

The one Saturday, Laurel and I had gone to yoga, somewhere between home and work, and I stopped into a different Starbucks.  We ordered, got our drinks, and we went on our way.  A few days later, I was out near that Starbucks, and I stopped by, and a funny thing happened.  Jack knew me by name.  And he also asked where my wife was.  I was astounded that after just one visit, he remembered me, and he also knew my wife had been with me the time before. 

The good news was that we had just built a new building and my work location moved, so I’m maybe five minutes from this Starbucks, so I started going in almost daily.  Jack would go out of his way to strike up a conversation with me anytime I’d come in, but it wasn’t just Jack.  The one time I tried ordering a drink, and they were out of the flavor I asked for, but Mary excitedly “sold” me on the Sugar Cookie Almond Milk Latte.  She couldn’t wait for me to try it, and the next time I came in, she couldn’t wait to find out if I liked it or not.  She was ecstatic that I gave it a thumbs up.

And it didn’t end.  The one day as I was waiting for my drink, a young lady was mopping the floor, and she struck up a conversation with me.  She spent her time as she mopped talking to me, asking questions, making me feel like, well, a valued customer. 

I have not had one bad experience at this Starbucks, so I have to chalk it up to good management, or maybe it’s they hire really well, or maybe we just have moved past the pandemic and Old School is on the rebound.  Each time I go there, the staff treats me like one of their friends (or maybe more appropriately, the grandfather of one of their friends).  I look forward to seeing them each time I stop in, and yes, I’m back to a daily Starbucks fix, largely due to great customer service.

I have to say, this Starbucks is not the only beacon of real customer service, there are at least pockets of it around us.

There is a small boutique shop called Honey & Abernathy in Delaware, near where we live.  They have unique gift items, but the draw is the great customer service that the ladies provide there.  Each time we go in, they are friendly, offer help, offer suggestions if we need it, tell us what is new in the store, and generally, just treat us like their friends.  Maggie is one of the young ladies that works there, and as Laurel said the one time, “she is just adorable”.  And in each of their own ways, all of the people that work there provide outstanding customer service.  I find it hard to believe that I’m admitting this, but over the Thanksgiving holiday, I saw on our credit card statement that we had made five purchases there. 

My favorite story though doesn’t even involve me.  I love it so much because it shows, as I noted in my previous blog, customer service, or essentially, kindness, flows both ways.  Laurel stopped into our local Kroger the one day to do her regular grocery shopping for the week.  As she was checking out, the cashier made the comment, “You’re always so nice, you always smile when you come through the check-out line.”  Laurel’s reaction was, “What other choice do I have?  What else would I do?”  But I’m sure that’s not what this lady experiences each day, there are so many times we can be rude, mean, or even scrolling on our phones rather than greeting the person who is providing a service to us.  It takes so little to be kind and compassionate to those around us, but as Laurel found that time, it can mean so much to the recipient.  Laurel brightened that cashier’s day, and in turn, she brightened Laurel’s day.

The monkey is firmly planted on my back again.  I blame Jack for this.  No, I blame Mary.  No, I blame Danielle and Katie and Samantha and Kyra and all the rest of the wonderful baristas at the Starbucks in Lewis Center.  I’ll gladly carry that monkey around if it means I get to experience Old School again.  Customer service isn’t dead.  Even COVID couldn’t kill it.

Epilogue: Today, I was on my way to Starbucks, and I called Laurel.  She said, “Are you on your way to Starbucks?  You really have a monkey on your back.”  And that was before I published this.

(Practicing) Gratitude

 “It seems that gratitude without practice may be a little like faith without works – it’s not alive” Brene Brown from “The Gifts of Imperfection”

OK, I’ve used this one before, but come on, it’s Brene Brown, how can I possibly go wrong?

A new year, a new resolution….

No, as I’ve noted before, I’ve taken a page out of my dear friend Dave Carr’s book, and I don’t do resolutions, I do words that I want to focus on this year.  This year’s word is Gratitude. 

Over a year ago, I did a blog post about Practicing Gratitude, and it focused on our long journey of moving to Columbus, looking for a building, eventually buying property and breaking ground on a new building, and all of the difficulties along the way. 

You can focus on all of the difficulties along the way, or you can find the many reasons to be grateful for what you have.  I wish I could say I always do the latter, but then again, I’m human.  As I pointed out in that blog post though, it’s easy to fall into the trap of bitching about everything, and it oftentimes feels really good.  But eventually, it loses its appeal, and it doesn’t feel very good anymore.

But gratitude.  Gratitude never disappoints.  If you stop and enumerate, highlight those things you can be grateful for, it gives you such a great feeling inside.

And 2022 gave me so many things to be grateful for.  Sure, there were many difficulties and hurdles along the way, but also, many magical and uplifting moments.  Just to name a few:

• Laurel and I had our 40^th wedding anniversary, and we were able to share the moment on a weekend with our four children and their spouses.  We had family portraits done, and we had a wonderful weekend together.  I’m not sure how it could have been a better experience.
  
  
  
• I completed my 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training in the spring with seven wonderful people and two outstanding teachers.  This was one of the best moments in my life, and I couldn’t have asked for a  better group of people to share it with.  I will never forget any of them, and I will never forget this experience.

• We moved into our new building at work.  To give some perspective on this, Bobby Herring, who ran the building project, and I reflected on our journey.  We started it three years ago, looking at existing properties.  We kept getting turned down, or the properties were, to be kind, shitholes.  We started looking at land, and eventually WIKA bought some land for us to build a building on.  We started construction last fall, and we eventually finished in December.  Three years, a lot of ups and downs, but finally, we are in our new building. 
  

I could go on and on enumerating the many gifts I have to be grateful for in 2022, but I’ll leave it with these three snippets.  Did everything go right in each of these situations?  Oh heavens no!  I could tell you all of the things that went wrong, all of the pitfalls.  But again, what good does that do?  In the end, these were moments to celebrate, and to be grateful for. 

For 2023, I choose gratitude.  I choose to look for the good, the positive, those things to celebrate rather than those nagging moments that can lead to negativity and bitching.  If I succeed, 2023 will be an even better year than 2022, no matter what happens.