Author: Andrew Embry

If you mixed diet mountain dew, funk music, dragons, hip hop, superheroes, and lightning in a blender you’d end up with Andrew Embry. He is part wordsmith and part alchemist, able to use his Batman utility belt to turn anything and everything into a story worth telling that is equal parts insightful, memorable, inspiring, humorous, and entertaining. Andrew is comfortably creative in almost any setting, but especially when he is performing spoken word poetry. His enthusiasm for words comes from the way he loves people and the little nuances of life that make it worth living.

Superhero Lessons Part 3 Wonder Woman, Warrior AND Princess (4-13-16)

Last week we talked about Green Lantern and conquering fear. This week, we will think about Wonder Woman and how we can tackle those “supposed” contradictions within all of us in order to make ourselves stronger.

Wonder Woman is one of the most powerful characters in the DC Universe. I believe that she is one of the few characters who could go toe to toe with Superman in a fistfight, and I also believe she would have a great chance at winning because of her strength, brains, and magic lasso. In case you don’t know, Superman is vulnerable to magic, so that could play into Wonder Woman’s hands with her lasso and weapons. Also, her bracelets could reflect his laser vision. Finally, she’s an Amazon warrior. Nuff said.

Anyway, Wonder Woman is a fascinating character to me, because she is a collection of traits that are “supposed to be” contradictions. She’s a warrior AND a princess. She’s strong AND feminine. She’s a leader AND a servant. She’s caring AND tough. She’s all powerful AND merciful. She’s not one or the other. She is ALL of these things wrapped up into one person. She’s an example of how the different sides of us don’t have to be at odds with each other. In fact, we are richer when these different sides work together inside ourselves.

What does this have to do with life? In life we don’t always appreciate the complexity of people. Instead, we often want to make people choose to be one thing or the other. You are either a jokester or someone who takes their job seriously. You are either a leader or a follower. You are either creative or methodical. You are either strong or vulnerable. You are either an expert or a student.

If Wonder Woman would wrap us in her Lasso of Truth we’d quickly see that we don’t have to choose between these false dichotomies that we set up. Instead, we can be both. We can be a collection of traits that are “supposed to be” contradictions, and that is what can make us powerful.

The challenge: How can you be like Wonder Woman and embrace all sides of yourself?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Superhero Lessons Part 2 Green Lantern and Overcoming Fear (4-6-16)

Last week we talked about Batman, The Flash, and knowing where the finish line is before you take off sprinting. This week I want us to look at something else that could get in the way of us reaching the finish line. That thing is FEAR.

Maybe you have heard of the Green Lantern. Green Lantern is basically an intergalactic cop with a power ring that he uses to fight bad guys. The ring is powered by will/grit/determination. This ring allows him to use his imagination to create anything he needs to make to save the day. For example, say he was surrounded by bad guys with guns. He might create a huge shield that blocks all of their bullets. Maybe an airplane is going to crash, so he could create a large hand to catch it. As long as he has the will and the imagination he can virtually do anything.

All superheroes have an arch nemesis. The Green Lantern’s vile villain is Sinestro, a Yellow Lantern (see picture). While Green Lantern is powered by will, Yellow Lanterns like Sinestro are powered by FEAR. The whole idea is that fear is the largest threat to someone’s will to do something. When fear comes into play the Green Lantern loses his will, his imagination, and his power. Green Lantern and Sinestro have clashed time and time again with Green Lantern always finding a way to overcome fear in order to beat Sinestro.

What does an intergalactic cop have to do with work? It all comes down to your willpower versus the fear you face. How often are we excited about a great idea that withers away because fear sets in? How often do we allow fear to chip away at our self-confidence? We become worried the idea won’t work. We become worried that other people might judge us. Before we know it, our imagination, our power, our will has been crushed by fear. We can’t remove fear from our lives, but we can overcome it.

Challenge: How will you overcome fear, so your willpower can make your thoughts a reality?

Bonus Confessions: Things that fill me with fear on a regular basis that I have to find ways to overcome. Maybe we share a few of these in common.

Being a dad-> Am I doing this right? Am I setting the girls up for success? Do I know what I need to know?
Being incompetent in this role-> How long do I get to play the new guy card until people just say I’m incompetent? Am I valuable to anybody?
Sending out my blogs-> Every week I ask myself: Is this any good? Is this weird that I’m sending these out? Do people think I’m arrogant for doing this?
Performing poetry/giving speeches-> I’m good at these things, so I shouldn’t have fear but I still do. All the way up to the point I step on stage I worry about crashing and

burning. Will I forget my words? Will the audience accept something like this? Will people listen? Is this the right message? Will this make me weird in people’s eyes?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Superhero Lessons Part 1 The Flash vs. Batman: A Battle of Speed and Thought (3-30-16)

This week we are going to kick off a series of lessons inspired by superheroes. We’ll start by thinking about speed, direction, Batman, and The Flash.

Imagine for a moment that Batman challenges The Flash to a race. The Flash accepts. The two racers meet at the starting line. The Flash will do the race on foot and Batman will drive the Batmobile. Alfred says, “Go!” and the racers take off. The Flash takes off heading north at the speed of sound, roughly 768 mph. Meanwhile, Batman jumps into the Batmobile, enters coordinates into the Bat GPS and starts heading south at his top speed of 230 mph. Batman wins the race.

The Flash is more than 3 times faster than Batman in his Batmobile, so how does Batman win? For the sake of argument, let’s just say that Batman wins, because he takes the time to figure out where the finish line is before he goes. This is why Batman headed south when The Flash headed north. In our story we’ll pretend that The Flash was so excited about racing that he took off before ever knowing where the finish line was. This probably sounds pretty comical. This is a silly gag that would show up in a poorly written comic. You’d probably read this and say, “Come on! The Flash would never do anything like that.”

Now here’s the gut check. How often are you sprinting at work without understanding where the finish line is? This never happens to me, because I’m so awesome. However, I have a friend who likes superheroes and has two daughters and I hear this has happened to him before. My friend even told me it has happened to him over the past month. My friend says, he probably shouldn’t admit his shortcomings, but the last time he checked he’s still human and he still can’t walk on water, so mistakes are part of being human. My friend wonders if anyone else has made the same mistake. (<-Comic sans font equals obnoxious sarcasm)

Bottom line: It is way too easy to get sucked into the flurry of activity, the need to feel like you’re sprinting and contributing, but the fact is that speed without the proper direction is useless. Even worse, speed with the wrong direction can be detrimental.

The Challenge: Before you use your Flash speed, will you use your Batman intellect to locate the finish line?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

How do your shoes impact your walk? (3-23-16)

Last week we ended the series of lessons I’ve learned from my daughters by talking about a game I play with Alice where we build a bridge between two people. The main idea is that it doesn’t matter how different two people are as long as they are willing to build a bridge to connect them. This week I want to continue with that theme of connection by talking about shoes. What shoes are you wearing right now? How do they impact the way you walk?

There is an adage that if you want to get to know someone you need to walk a mile in their shoes. I think another way of looking at this wisdom is to understand how the shoes you wear on a daily basis impact the way you walk and experience the world. Understanding how your walk might be the same and different from other people is an important ingredient in trying to connect with each other.

I’d like to share a situation where my shoes impact my world. When I go to the store alone with the girls I can’t tell you how many people say things along the lines of, “You’re such a great dad spending time with your girls.” Whether it’s verbal or non-verbal the fact is I get bonus points for spending time with my kids in public places. Basically the world applauds me for buying groceries. Weird, right? This doesn’t happen for my wife. My wife doesn’t get a pat on the back for taking the girls grocery shopping. Along those same lines nobody ever asks or expects me to “juggle it all” with work and family. No one has ever implied that I love my kids less because I work, but this has happened to working moms that I know. All of these things happen, because I’m a male who happens to be a dad and the expectations from society are different for me and my wife. In short, my shoes impact my walk.

The above examples were gender differences between parents. We could talk all day about other dimensions and I’d be able to share where my shoes make my walk a little different from other folks. Sometimes it would be positive and sometimes it would be negative. Overall, it’s easier to say that we are all the same versus dealing with the complexity of everyone walking in different shoes that impact the way we walk. If we want to have true connections then we need to understand our own shoes and how they make us walk, so we can find the right materials to build bridges.

The challenge: Do you know how your shoes impact the way you walk?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 6 Building Bridges between Towers (3-16-16)

This will be the last in the series about lessons I’ve learned from my daughters. We’ve talked about celebrating first steps, recognizing each other, showing appreciation, overcoming obstacles, and saying “Yes!…and” to invisible bull fights. I want to end this series by talking about a different game I play with Alice that is all about connecting people.

One of Alice’s favorite games is called Camelot Junior. It’s a puzzle game you play with wooden blocks. You use those wooden blocks to build bridges to connect two characters. Each puzzle starts with you setting up the knight and princess on two separate towers. Then you use blocks to build a bridge, so the two characters can meet in the middle. In our house, the characters meet in the middle to talk about really important stuff like dragons, saving the kingdom from bad guys, and dance moves.

After you connect the two characters you move to the next challenge. The game comes with an instruction book that tells you how to set up different puzzles and which blocks you are allowed to use to build the bridge in each situation. As you progress throughout the game, connecting the characters becomes more and more difficult as the characters are placed further apart and you have to use blocks in new and creative ways to build the bridge.

What does this have to do with anything? Much like the game, life is about building bridges between two people, so they can connect in the middle. Depending on the two people and their backgrounds, they might start out really close together or they could be really far apart. In the grand scheme of things, the distance between the two people doesn’t matter. What matters is whether or not you are willing to try to bridge that gap. All that matters is whether or not you are willing and able to find the right blocks to start building a bridge to connect with other people. Are you willing to take the first step and begin building the bridge? Are you willing to put in the time to understand others, so you can find new blocks that will connect you with each other?

The challenge: How are you building a bridge between you and the people around you?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 5 Obstacles and Invisible Bullfights (3-9-16)

Last week was a story about Violet and her determination to overcome obstacles to get cookies. This week we’ll explore how we can be the obstacles that get in way of greatness.

A few weeks ago my family had just finished dinner when Alice said, “I have an idea! Let’s have a bullfight.” What would you do in that situation? You might have said no. You might have hesitated, because that seemed weird. You might have been afraid of trying something new. Maybe you didn’t have the energy. You might have tried to rationalize why that may not be a good idea. Me and my wife looked at each other and said, “Yes!…and we’ll use the blankets as matador capes!”

We turned on some music, and then the bullfight began. There were flurries of blankets, flourishes, and smooth moves. It started with Alice and Violet being the bulls, and we had to catch them. Then, out of nowhere Alice said, the bull is invisible, and Diane (my wife) and I said, “Yes… and we all need to catch him!” The invisible bull was everywhere. It got me and my wife. Alice had to save Violet and Violet had to save Alice a million times. We went running through the house jumping over couch cushions, using chairs to block the bull, and fighting it with our matador/ninja skills. At one point my wife became a T-rex and Alice was riding her to catch the bull (see pic). It was intense and crazy amounts of fun.

So what does fighting an imaginary invisible bull have to do with YOU being an obstacle? When people come to you with new ideas, how do you respond? Are you the obstacle? Do you say no, do you hesitate, or do you give them the green light to keep sharing and exploring? Besides people coming to you with ideas, are you your own obstacle when you have ideas? When you dream big things, how do you respond? Do you allow fear, skepticism, or feeling tired get in the way? Do you press on and keep exploring?

When Alice asked if we wanted to have a bullfight, we could have told Alice no, because her idea was weird. If I did that to her over and over again sooner or later, she’d stop sharing ideas. Instead, we said, “Yes, and…” we evolved with the game. Imagination takes time to grow, so if you crush new ideas in the beginning you never have the opportunity to harvest their spectacular fruit.

The challenge: Will you say, “Yes, and…” to the next invisible bullfight that comes your way?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 4 What if we unlearned that obstacles should stop us? (3-2-16)

We’ve talked about recognition and appreciation, so now it’s time to switch gears to talk about determination. This is one of my favorite pictures of Violet. This is her, “Nothing is going to stop me!” look.

Since she was born, Violet has been strong, ornery, and stubborn. (Where did those traits come from?) I believe these super powers of hers are magnified by the fact that she’s a toddler. If you ever want to see true focused “you can’t stop me” determination, you should try to put obstacles in a toddler’s way. I don’t think that toddlers understand the fact that obstacles are supposed to slow them down or stop them. I think this is something they learn over time. Instead of being limited by obstacles, they are so focused on achieving their goal that they just power through.

For example, the other day Violet wanted some cookies. We told her no and put them on the kitchen island out of her reach. We thought that would end the situation. We were wrong. We were playing and all of a sudden we realize Violet had snuck away. Violet had moved a kitchen chair and a bar stool to the island. We watched as she got onto the kitchen chair to climb on the bar stool to get on top of the island. She smiled to herself as she opened up the tub of cookies and grabbed one. I’m not sure this was the best parenting move, but I let her have the cookie. I had way too much appreciation for the determination and problem solving 😉

This is one example. She has figured out baby gates, childproof locks, etc. In each of these instances, Violet could have looked at the obstacle, decided it would be too hard to overcome, and gave up. However, she doesn’t know what an obstacle is, so she doesn’t know it’s supposed to stop her. Instead, she views the obstacle as something she’ll have to power through to get to her goal.

What would happen if we started to look at obstacles like Violet? What if we unlearned the fact that obstacles are supposed to stop us? How would that change the way you worked and lived your life?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 3 The Power of Appreciation (2-24-16)

Last week we talked about recognition and this week we’ll think about appreciation by sharing some pictures I came across on my phone from Christmas.

When I came back to work after holiday break people often asked me how my holidays were. I always told them they were amazing. I loved unplugging from work, getting caught up on sleep, and binge watching some TV shows. Most of all, I loved the Christmas I had with my family. This was by far the best Christmas I’ve ever had.

You might be wondering what was so special. Take a look at the pictures. Look at their faces. Look at the joy and appreciation. That’s why this was the best Christmas ever! Both girls are at a perfect age where they truly appreciated and cherished the gifts they were given. They did these things with such sincerity that I couldn’t help but smile. In the grand scheme of things, the gifts they received were not extravagant. Alice is clutching a maze activity book that probably cost $1. Violet is enthralled with a Little Einstein’s book that might have been $5. It wasn’t the gift that made them smile as much as it was the appreciation that someone cared about them so much that they got them something they would enjoy. I hope they never grow out of this stage.

When was the last time you felt and showed such appreciation? Maybe a family member did something special for you. Maybe a friend gave you a call to check up on you. Maybe a co-worker gave you a pat on the back for a job done well. There have been a lot of things going on in life right now that continue to confirm how precious life, family, and friends really are. How are you showing appreciation for these people and things that make life worth living?

The challenge: Show someone how much you appreciate them this week. Clutch onto life the way Alice holds her maze book and smile as you peruse through life’s pages the way Violet does as she searches for Rocket.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 2 Legos and Recognition (2-17-16)

Last week was a story about recognizing progress. This week is a different recognition story. The other day the girls and I were playing with Legos while my wife was out of the house with some friends. Whenever Alice builds something she thinks is really cool we put it up on the island in our kitchen so she can show her mom later. When we show my wife, Alice gets so excited, and it gives us a chance as parents to encourage her for her creativity, imagination, and the stories she tells.

The picture is of Alice with some Lego creations. Notice that I didn’t say HER Lego creations. She built the tower thing on the left, but the other things you see are things that I built with Violet. Violet and I had just finished building “Dinosaur Truck Tower” and “Helicopter Friend” (Alice’s names for the things) when Alice rushed over and said, “Daddy, these are beautiful. Can I put them on the island to show mommy? She’ll be so proud of you and Violet.”

Alice wasn’t jealous. Alice wasn’t worried that if her mom saw our cool stuff that she’d think Alice’s creations weren’t great. Instead, she was so proud of the work her sister and I did that she wanted to share it with her mom.

Think about our work. We often talk about the need for reward and recognition. We often wait for a boss or someone higher up to notice us. Instead of waiting, why don’t we lift each other up to be seen? How often do you get so excited about the work of your peers that you make the effort to make sure the boss notices them? How do you take their work and put it on your “kitchen island” so everyone else can see what you think is beautiful?

The Challenge: Show someone a peer’s “Lego creation” this week. Show them the beautiful colors, the thought that went into building it. Show them that you are noticing them and you care enough about them that you want to share them and their success with the world.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 1 Cheering on First Steps (2-10-16)

As many of you know, I’m a dad. I have two girls, Violet (2) and Alice (3.5). I’ve learned so much from my girls and over the new few weeks I’d like to share a few of those lessons. This week I want to share what I’ve learned about recognizing progress instead of just results.

When my girls started walking my wife got really excited. I didn’t think it was a big deal. I mean, they could barely take steps. Most of the people on this planet can walk. It’s not that impressive that they can take a few steps. Obviously those last few sentences aren’t true. If they were, I’d be one of the coldest dads out there. When my kids first started taking steps we partied like it was 1999. We yelled. We cheered. We did impromptu happy dances. We gave high fives, hugs, and lots of kisses.

Why would we celebrate this? We celebrated because for them, their first steps were a huge leap forward. Of course we want them to grow up and be coordinated and active individuals, but we know this outcome doesn’t happen overnight. If all we did was constantly compare them to a high bar that is out of their reach they’d be discouraged. We know their progress is worth celebrating to help them believe in themselves, so they can achieve great things.

As they continue to grow up I see how important it is to celebrate progress. Talking always came very easy to Alice. She’s been able to tell full crazy stories since she was really young. This isn’t the case with Violet. Violet’s a little behind in her speech to the point where we have her working with a speech therapist. There are a lot of friends and family members who compare outputs between Alice and Violet. They’ll say, “Violet doesn’t talk as much as Alice at that age. Violet can’t say many words.” What they are saying is true. What they are missing though is all of the progress that Violet is making right now. They are missing how she’s picking up a few more words. They are missing how proud of herself she is when she says words that are new to her like “balloon” or “bubble”. They are missing opportunities to encourage and cheer her on.

Work connection. When is the last time you stopped to reflect on your progress? When is the last time you commended someone else on their progress or on their growth? If you want someone to reach the high bar you are setting for them, you need to help them believe they can reach it. That only happens if you help them realize how far they’ve come and how much closer they are to the goal.

The challenge: Find someone (peer, direct report, friend, family member, etc.) this week and tell them how proud you are of the progress they’ve made.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry