I Hope We All Grow like the Grinch (12-15-21)

This week will be the last blog of 2021.  If you’ve been on this distribution list for a while, you might recognize that I usually end the year with this entry.  I feel it is just as relevant now as it was in years past.  Besides, we watch the same holiday specials every year, so we can revisit the same holiday themed blogs, right? 😉  For our final blog of the year we will look at How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

During this holiday season I hope we are all like the Grinch.  Pretty strange thing to say, right?  Let me explain why I feel this way.  You may know the story of the Grinch.  He is a grumpy creature who decides he will try to steal Christmas from the Whos  He concocts an elaborate scheme and then steals all of the presents, decorations, etc. in an effort to ruin their holiday.  This negative attitude is what we often associate with the Grinch, but this isn’t the end of his story.  The Grinch grows as a character, and life is all about growing, changing, and becoming better.

The Grinch has stolen the gifts, and then he hears the Whos singing.  All of a sudden it hits him right as his sleigh full of gifts starts to go over the cliff.  “And what happened, then? Well, in Whoville they say – that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day. And then – the true meaning of Christmas came through, and the Grinch found the strength of *ten* Grinches, plus two!”  He saves the gifts from falling over the cliff, rides into Whoville, and serves the roast beast at the feast. 

The reason I hope we are all like the Grinch this year is because he grows and becomes a better person.  He begins filled with apathy, malice, and grumpiness, and then he allows love in and it fundamentally changes him.  How have you changed and grown this year?  Wherever you are right now, we have the chance to be better.  Imagine how different the world be if all of our hearts grew like the Grinch’s. 

Here is to all of us knowing what it feels like when our hearts grow three sizes in a day.  As always, thanks so much for reading.  Your reading and encouragement throughout the year is the best gift I could ever ask for.  Happy holidays!  I hope you find peace, love, and fulfillment.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Open Letter to 2021 (12-8-21)

Happy Wednesday! 

As the year comes to a close, I find myself reflecting.  Here is my open letter to 2021 about the emotions and lessons it gave me.

Dear 2021,

How’s it going?  After the year that was 2020, you’ll probably most be remembered as the year that didn’t totally suck.  I mean after 2020 the bar was pretty low, and you managed to get over it.  High five!  While I’m chilling by my Christmas tree here are my thoughts and feelings.

  • My family didn’t have the health problems we had last year, but things still aren’t entirely smooth yet.  This is just another reminder of how easy it is to take good health for granted.  I feel this will always be the top lesson that’s reinforced throughout the year.
  • Thanks for finding ways to nudge me to not worry so much.  It’s easy to get wrapped up and become consumed about how the pandemic, life stress, and other things are having a negative impact on my girls.  Then, I see them laughing, coming up with ideas I never could, and showing such incredible kindness to others that it makes me realize it is never as bad as I fear it is.  Plus, they still think I’m funny and they’ll still snuggle with me from time to time.
  • You brought some exciting new challenges to tackle.  Preparing for them and overcoming them gave me so much energy.  You also brough some soul sucking challenges to tackle.  I didn’t love them, but I made it through and am stronger. Thank you.
  • If you look at my phone, I’ve stopped to take more pictures of flowers, trees, sunrises, and sunsets than I ever have.  It makes me happy.
  • I feel like the entire world is kind of like a bunch of teenagers right now.  We are going through so much and all struggling with who we are and we hope to become.  I only pray that we are kind to each other as we go through these growing pains.
  • I’ve always been a big proponent that BBQ sauce can cover a lot of cooking mistakes.  BBQ sauce doesn’t help with failure or disappointment though.  You just have to work through that, and working through never happens as fast as you’d like.
  • I have a lot more stress related behaviors than I realized.  Being aware of this has been huge.  I hope to continue to improve my coping mechanisms in the next year.
  • There is something glorious about running in the cold darkness.  It’s one of the few times when I can hear the universe/energy/God.  Thanks for that peace.
  • I believe people change.  I believe it usually happens so slowly it’s hard to notice.  I feel myself changing though.  Not sure who or what I’m changing into.  Not sure if it’s good or bad.  It just is.  I often wonder if I’m losing something I had or if I’m gaining something new.  This probably doesn’t make any sense, but it’s one of the more human things I’ve felt this year.
  • The thing I’m most proud of is that I feel like I’m finding my flow/vibe again.  It’s different, but it’s mine.
  • I am loved by myself and others.  That is more than enough.
  • 2021, you were definitely a wild ride and 2022 is already shaping up to be an adventure.

Those are things going through my head.  Yours might be similar or different.  Whatever you’re feeling is okay.  Your feelings are your truth.

The challenge:  If you haven’t taken the time, take a few moments to reflect on 2021 and the lessons and emotions it gave to you this year.  How will these shape you moving forward?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

What Do Our Goals Tell Us About Ourselves? (12-1-21)

This week we will start a 2 part series about reflecting on the end of the year.  We’ll start by reflecting on the goals we set earlier this year and what those goals can tell us about ourselves.

At the beginning of every year I set goals for myself across a few categories: career, financial, physical, mental, and relationships.  I wanted to lead a successful launch meeting.  I wanted to save X amount of money.  I wanted to complete an obstacle course race.  I wanted to read at least 20 books.  I wanted to go on a couple of date nights with my wife every month.  As this year comes to a close, I’ll stop to look at which goals I achieved.  I had some hits and I had some misses too. 

In an achievement obsessed culture, it will be easy to just focus on the accomplishments.  It will be easy to say, “I’m good, because I achieved A and B goals.” And “I’m bad, because I missed on X and Y goals.”  I’d argue life is more than just achievement.  There were some goals I accomplished and realized they weren’t as important as I thought they were.  At the end of everything I didn’t feel different and I didn’t learn anything.  There were some goals I accomplished and realized it wasn’t about the goal at all, but the journey I went on that transformed me.  On the flip side, there were goals I missed in life.  Some of those misses hurt.  Some of them didn’t hurt as bad as I thought they did, which continued to show me what is truly important in life.  

What does this have to do with anything?  As we wind down for the year, I hope we all take the time to look at the goals we set for ourselves in work and life.  When we do, the first thing we will ask is whether or not we achieved our goals, but I’d encourage us reflect further.  I hope we take time to ask ourselves more questions about what it means when we hit or don’t hit a goal. 

If you hit a goal– What does that signify to you? Is hitting this goal as important as you thought it would be when you set it?  What does that tell you?  How did you hit that goal? Is this something you want to continue focusing on?  Do you want to build on this success?  If so, how? 

If you missed a goal– What does that signify to you?  Is missing this goal as important as you thought it would be when you set it? What does that tell you?  Why did you miss achieving the goal?  What was in your control and outside of your control?  What did you learn?  How will you adapt in the future?  Will you keep this as a goal or will you go in a new direction?

The challenge: What do your goals tell you about yourself?

Bonus: Happy Hanukkah to all my friends celebrating.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Wellness and Sustainability (11-17-21)

This is going to be the last in a series about wellness.  This week we will look at wellness and sustainability.

Pretend for a moment that I forced you to sprint as hard as you could for 60 minutes.  How long could you do it before it caused damage to your body?  5 minutes? 10?

No one could make it the full 60 minutes.  Sooner or later the fatigue would set in and we’d be injuring ourselves trying to run.  Now imagine for a moment we changed it up.  You sprint as hard as you can for 1 minute and then you walk for 10.  You repeat this until 60 minutes are up.  Which way of doing things is sustainable?  The one that has the higher chance of being sustainable is the sprint/walk combo.  It will still be hard to do this, but it is something that can more than likely be done without causing devastating harm.

You might be wondering where this is going.  This entire series has been about wellness and taking care of ourselves, so we can keep going.  The above example causes us to reflect on what it means for an action to be sustainable.  It’s more than just whether or not you can do the action.  Sustainability is about being able to do the action without causing significant harm to yourself. 

Recently I was talking to a colleague, and they said something along the lines of, “The company is expecting more, stretching people beyond their breaking point, all in the midst of a pandemic.”  My colleague wondered how sustainable that is.  Have you ever wondered that?  While I agreed to an extent, I also challenged the idea of sustainable.  We keep saying, “I don’t know how long it will be sustainable.”  This assumes that what we have demanded of people WAS sustainable at some point.  I’d argue it never was.  Per our analogy, we demanded people sprint constantly by having unrealistic expectations and requirements in the midst of a pandemic.  Those expectations never let up or changed.  Throughout the past couple of years it feels more like individuals have been in varying states of breaking down, at least I’ve felt that way a fair amount.  The unspoken question being asked is, “How long can this go on before people are broken into pieces?”, which is very different from asking about sustainability and how long we can keep this up before doing harm to ourselves.  That unspoken question is a scary one, especially because it’s going to be hard to glue people back together after they are shattered.

The challenge: As a leader, how are you creating an environment that promotes wellness AND sustainability?  What are you doing to help people keep from breaking?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Spartan Race, Wellness, and Energy Flows (11-10-21)

Last week was about managing your energy and watering a cactus.  This week is about a Spartan race, wellness, and understanding how energy flows to and from you.

Back in September, I accomplished a fitness goal and completed my first ever Spartan Sprint.  It’s a 3 mile race filled with obstacles (monkey bars, mud, cargo nuts, bucket carries, rope climbs, etc.) you need to overcome.  Leading up to the race, I made sure I ate foods that would fill up my energy reserves, so I would have enough in the tank to get through the race.  During the race, I exhausted a lot of those energy reserves trying to get through all the obstacles.  After the race, I spent most of the day just being lazy.  I also did some foam rolling and took a nice nap to recover.  The rest of the week I did stretching and active recovery to fill my tanks again.  (Look, it’s the cover of Bucket Carry Magazine😉)

How does this connect with energy flows and wellness?  Last week I talked about wellness as it relates to managing your energy.  If you look at my Spartan story, throughout the day I was either adding energy (eating, napping), being energy neutral (lazy sitting around), or spending energy (racing).  It’s important to understand how the energy was flowing in each of these situations, because it helped me figure out what was best for my recovery to refill my tank.  Now think about work/life for a moment.  Have you ever done an energy audit?  What actions/projects refuel you?  What is neutral for you?  What causes you to spend energy?  What sucks your soul and causes you to lose a lot of energy very quickly?  I do an energy audit from time to time and the reflection helps me build a life that refuels me in the right ways, which leads to better holistic wellness for me.

Embry Energy Audit Learnings–  On the work side, I avoid roles, situations, and people that will primarily drain me and take roles that have more work that will refuel or at least be neutral.  I invest time in “non-critical” work things, like blogging, mentoring, sending memes because they energize me (I put “non-critical” in quotes because I’d argue these things are probably more critical than some “official work”.)  On the life side, I used to workout at night.  I’ve found that working out in the morning gives me a boost throughout the day, so I’ve changed my routine.  As I get older my appreciation for sleep and active rest have increased a hundred fold.  Work will always be there, but once you lose hours of sleep you never get them again.  I’ve learned how much being at a computer all day drains me, so at night I try to minimize my screen time at night and instead read from an actual book.  I’m also more cognizant about whether an activity (or person) truly refuels me or if it’s just neutral.  Sometimes you just need a neutral activity, but sometimes I’ve found that I confuse neutral with replenishing and those aren’t the same.  I try to spend more time on refueling activities/people than neutral ones.

The challenge: How is your energy flowing?  How are you adapting to make this flow work better for you?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Wellness and Watering a Cactus (11-3-21)

Let’s pretend for a minute that it’s your job to water 3 indoor plants.  You’re given a watering can and told to split the water evenly between the 3 plants.  You water the first two plants, and come to the final one.  It’s a cactus.  You know that the cactus doesn’t need that much water, so instead of giving it 1/3 of the bucket like you were told to you just give it a little.  Later, your boss asks you why you didn’t use all the water.  You explain that the cactus doesn’t need that much water.  Your boss tells you it doesn’t matter, give the cactus the rest of the water.  From then on, you divide the water between the 3 plants equally, even though it doesn’t make sense.  You begin to realize there are other flowers, and they are dying.  You can’t do anything for them though, because you don’t have any water left.

What does this weird plant story have to do with anything?  What if in this story water represents energy and the plants represent different projects.  Have you ever been in a situation where you had multiple projects and even though 1 of them was clearly more important and impactful, you were still expected to invest a lot of energy into EVERYTHING you were doing?  This has happened to me.  This is like overwatering a cactus.  It doesn’t make sense.  Projects are a lot like plants, you should give them the amount of water (energy) needed, and no more.  Then, we should invest that extra energy for all those other important aspects of life like being a human, taking care of yourself/others, socializing, etc.

How do we practice this?  Leaders needs to first UNDERSTAND and then REALISITCALLY set expectations about the energy required to do things.  As individuals, we need to be focused on expending our energy where it really matters.  The challenge: As a leader, are you encouraging people to overwater a cactus (overinvest in something that isn’t worth it)?  As an individual, how are you managing your energy supply?

Bonus story 1: One time I was talking to a boss of mine during a 1 on 1.  They asked how I was doing.  I explained that with everything going on, I was on my B game right now.  I wasn’t putting in all the energy and having the impact I’d normally like to, because I was putting my energy towards handling other things.  My boss replied by saying that was understandable and that they’ve been there.  In fact, they were feeling that way right now.  I went on to say that all that matters is I’m on my A game when it actually matters.  My boss agreed and then said something like, “If we’re honest, now is an okay time to be on a B game.  We can get through that and then get back to our A game when we need to.”  When is the last time you had an open conversation like this with your boss?  How would it feel if you did have a conversation like this with your boss?  For me, the conversation had a huge positive impact on my wellness and engagement.  If you’re a leader looking for what you can do to promote wellness, this could be a good place to start. 

Bonus story 2: I recently sent the below email to my agency partners.  I don’t run a team, but I partner with folks.  I can set expectations with them, so they the freedom to use their energy in better ways.

I know that in a perfect world we would launch X tactic in mid-February.  Let’s be more realistic.  If the tactic  is launched somewhere in the end of February/early March we are still in good shape.  I don’t want us running ourselves to death on this.  I don’t want the pursuit of perfection to lead to burnout.  You’re worth more than the tactic.  If you ever feel like I am asking you to sprint like crazy toward burnout, please tell me.  It’s likely because I’m not realizing an ask is creating substantial work for you.  At that point we can regroup, I can learn, and we can figure out how to adjust. 

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Parenting, Leading, and the Burden of Wellness (10-27-21)

This week I want to kick-off a series about wellness.  We will start by thinking about parenting, leading, and the burden of wellness.  Fair warning, this one might hit hard.

There are times when my girls struggle with their mental/physical/emotional/social health.  They get tired, stressed, grumpy, anxious, and lash out.  When this happens, my wife and I get together and figure out how we can adjust the environment to make it easier for them to be well.  We don’t swoop in to save them.  We help create the space for them.  There are a lot of different levels to pull.  We might say no to extra activities, keeping things off their plate.  We might adjust our expectations of them, asking them to only fulfill their minimal chores and obligations vs. asking for more.  We might do our best to slow everything else down, so we can spend quality time together.  This environment then helps them find their path to wellness. 

You might wonder where this one is going.  It feels like “wellness” has been the biggest corporate buzzword since COVID started.  It has also felt like the burden of wellness often falls on the individual, instead of the company and systems the person operates in.  To me the focus on wellness sounds like this, “Andrew, you’re already burned out, so please make time to listen to this webinar about burnout.  You’re overworked, so take a course on time management.  You don’t have enough time for your commitments, just take a day for self-care.”  Do you ever feel this way? 

In the story this week, I don’t put this burden of wellness on my daughters.  They can’t do this on their own.  They need an environment that supports them.  As a parent, as a co-leader of the family, I am responsible for creating this environment that promotes and enables wellness.  What if our companies, leaders, society, and systems we live in did a better job of creating this environment that promotes wellness?  What if instead of always asking for more and more and more and then telling you to take care of yourself, they did a better job of building wellness into the fabric of the way we do things? 

The challenge: As a leader, what are you doing to create an environment that makes achieving wellness easier?  What strategies and tactics can you execute to create this environment? 

The hard reflection:  If you aren’t creating an environment that promotes wellness without putting the burden on individuals, you’re likely inadvertently causing harm.  Is that okay with you?

Additional thoughts: Even if you’re not a leader with formal authority, I think you can do things to help the wellness of others.  I don’t lead a team, but I can make sure I’m recognizing people and showing them how much I appreciate them.  This doesn’t solve all problems, but it does give help fill their bucket so they can keep going.  I don’t lead a team, but I can spend an extra second making sure I’m clear on what we are trying to accomplish with a given project.  This clarity minimizes swirl, which minimizes how much energy a person has to spend doing something.  They can use the energy they didn’t waste to do other things in life without going empty.  I don’t lead a team, but I can tell someone, “This isn’t urgent.  Don’t rush to get it to  me.  I’m not going to look at it for a couple of days anyway,” which gives them time to breathe.  Reserving speed and urgency for only the things that truly require speed and urgency allows people to save their energy for when it matters.  I’m not perfect at any of these things.  I am trying to be more cognizant, so I can do better because even my actions as an individual contributor make a difference.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Struggles and the Stories We Tell Ourselves (10-20-21)

This is going to be the last in the series of things I’ve struggled with over the past year.  We’ve looked at struggling with self-doubt, leading through change, wondering if we are enough, and grappling with our value.  This week we will look at the golden thread that connects all of these, and that’s the power of the stories we tell ourselves.  Let’s look at this through the lens of kicking field goals.

Bob the kicker misses a 30 yard field goal.  After he misses he tells himself, “It’s okay. It’s one miss.  It’s one mistake.  I own that.  I also know I am more than capable of hitting the next one.”  Steve the kicker misses a 30 yard field goal.  After he misses he tells himself, “I can’t believe I missed that!  It’s all my fault.  I’m horrible.  I’m not sure I belong here on this field.”  Both kickers committed the same action.  The only difference is that they are telling themselves radically different stories.  Out of the two, who do you think will bounce back and hit the next kick?

You probably see where this is going.  Think about yourself for a minute.  Think about this series.  So often, the struggles we face aren’t just because of the circumstances.  The struggles also come with the negative stories we tell ourselves.  Throughout these series I’ve said, “I don’t know if I’m good enough.  I don’t know if I’m capable to lead through this.  I don’t think I’m enough.  I’m not sure I’m valuable.”  In these situations this negative story quickly became a downward spiral making tough situations even worse.  Does this ever happen to you? 

In order to productively grapple with these struggles I had to recognize that I couldn’t always change the situation, but I could change my perspective.  The peace I found in these struggles came when I told myself the other side of the story, and that sounded like, “This is hard and I’m doing the very best I can.  I can’t guarantee sunshine and rainbows, but I can reinforce how strong my people are and that strength will get them through.  I am more than enough.  I am valuable, even if I do face failure or rejection.”  When I told myself those stories rooted in facts and truth, I was able to move forward.

The Challenge- Are you mindful of the stories you tell yourself?  Are you aware of how those stories impact you?

Bonus insight- This series was supposed to be about some of the PERSONAL struggles I’ve had over the past year.  What has been amazing is that each week a wide variety of have responded and said, “Yep, this one is me right now.  I’m struggling with that too.”  I share this as a reminder that often the things we think are personal are more universal than we realize.  After all, we are all humans.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Self-Doubt, Comparison, and Feeling like an Impostor (10-18-21)

Special blog edition.  I want to share some good news I’m proud of and excited about, while also sharing the vulnerability behind it.  Continuing with our theme of things I’ve struggled with, another struggle I have is the combination of self-doubt, comparing myself to others, and feeling like an impostor. 

So the good news…I was invited to be a guest on a podcast!  This was my first ever invitation to be a guest on a show.  The podcast is called Unlocking Your World of Creativity with Mark Stinson (Link to my episode if you want to listen).  Mark interviews people across different industries and talks to them about creativity.  What does it mean to them?  How do they apply it in their lives?   Now here is where the self-doubt creeps in.  When I was first asked to be on the podcast, I was thrilled.  Then, I noticed that other guests were business owners, CEOs, published authors, and people who seemed more successful than me.  Suddenly, I didn’t feel like I belonged anymore.  I told my wife I wasn’t sure if I’d be a great guest for the podcast.

Does my story sound at all familiar to you?  Maybe it’s not a podcast.  Maybe it’s a new role or opportunity.  Have you ever got stuck in the trap of comparing yourself to others and then feeling like an unworthy impostor?  In the case of feeling like a podcast imposter I turned this around by examining the evidence.  Learned this approach from The Inside Job podcast with Dr. Nayla Bahri and Eric Johnson.  I asked a simple and powerful question, “If the podcast is about creativity, what evidence do I have to support that I’m someone who can and should talk about creativity?”

It turns out I have a lot of evidence to suggest I’m an authority on creativity.  Everyone I’ve ever worked with has given me positive feedback on my creativity and how it’s helped me be a successful marketer and market researcher.  I’ve been called a master storyteller/poet by colleagues.  I’ve performed poetry in National competitions AND brought that same creativity to Corporate America in the form of a blog and mic dropping performances.  I’m a Marketer-Poet Unicorn.  Finally, Mark chose me, because of my blogs on LinkedIn.  He would only invite someone he felt was worthy.  All of these are factual statements.  All of this evidence suggests I’m a great candidate to discuss creativity.  After reviewing the evidence I realized I’m definitely not an impostor.  I went on to have an enjoyable conversation that felt very much like me, and I love how it turned out. 

The challenge: How will you use “the evidence” to challenge your feelings of self-doubt and being an impostor?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Podcast episode

Hammers and Feeling Valued (10-13-21)

Last week was about struggling with feeling like you aren’t enough and realizing you are.  We will build on that this week by reflecting on hammers and feeling valued.   

Months ago, I used a hammer to hang some pictures in my house.  More recently, when I had to pictures in my house I decided to use command strips, because they better fit my needs at the time.  I wonder… did the hammer ever feel abandoned in the toolbox?  Did it look out and wonder if it was useful, if I was able to use something else to hang pictures?  Did it ever wonder if it was a bad hammer, since I wasn’t using it more often?  Did it wonder if its skillset was even valuable anymore?

Where is this going?  Throughout this year there are times when I’ve attempted something and failed.  There have been times I’ve faced rejection.  It was hard for me to not take the failure and the rejection personally.  Similar to the hammer in my analogy, I often wondered, “I’m a good hammer, right?  I’m a valuable hammer, right?  I think I’m a hammer who can be useful.  Is that true?”  Have you ever felt like this when you’ve failed or faced rejection?

I had to learn over time that I can be a good hammer AND still fall short.  I can be a good hammer AND still encounter rejection.  I can be a good hammer AND not always be the person someone needs.  Just because I failed or was rejected in that instance doesn’t mean I am a lesser hammer.  It just means the circumstances weren’t in my favor in that particular situation.  Over time, I had to realize that my value isn’t necessarily determined by others.  I know who I am and what I am.  I better understand the value I bring.  Sometimes what I offer is needed and sometimes it’s not.  When I’m not needed, it’s just because the right situation hasn’t arrived yet.

Challenge 1: Are you letting other people decide your value or are you defining your value?

Challenge 2: Look at yourself in the mirror and say 3 things you value about yourself.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry