Goals and Setbacks (1-29-25)

Last week was about goals and means. This week is about goals and setbacks.

One of my goals this year was about completing obstacle course races. My first race was supposed to be last Saturday, and it was going to be the Abominable Snow Race. The only problem is that I came down with a nasty flu bug on Thursday, and I didn’t stop running a fever until Saturday night. Needless to say, I wasn’t able to make the race, and that was the first goal I missed for the year. At this point, I have two choices. I can continue to wallow in how sad I am that I missed a goal or I can regroup and get back after it. I may have missed that race, but I can make sure I’m even more prepared for my next one. (Pic is the Yeti and I from last year)

Now let’s make some connections. Have you ever missed achieving one of your goals at work? I have. Have you ever got lost in the downward spiral after missing out? I have. I have sat there and stewed, replaying every mistake, listing every excuse, and becoming so fixated on the negative that I became stuck. None of this was particularly helpful. None of this helped me move forward. Eventually, I had to accept the reality that I missed a goal, and the only thing I could do is regroup, refocus and go again.

The challenge: How will you regroup and refocus when you experience a setback?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Goals and Means (1-22-25)

Last week was about discussing goals with others. This week is about being clear on the means we will use to achieve those goals.

I mentioned last week that one of my goals is to get stronger, more specifically it’s to increase the amount of weight I lift on a weekly basis by 15-20% for the year. At this point, the outcome is relatively clear. However, the means to get there are not so clear, and the means matter. I could increase my strength in a lot of ways. I could take steroids, which likely wouldn’t be good for me or my family. I get super grumpy when I take steroids for poison ivy 😉 I could cheat by sandbagging my baseline, which would make any improvements larger than they are. I could follow a variety of exercise splits (push/pull/legs, full body, etc). I could workout 10 minutes per day or 3 hours per day. The means matter. Some of them are cheating. Some of them have negative impacts on me and others. Some of them involve making other trade-offs I would need to consider.

What does this have to do with work? Often, we are clear about the outcomes we want, but we are not as clear about the behaviors and means we want to see as people deliver those outcomes. Have you ever seen someone deliver the desired outcome, but leave a trail of dead bodies on the path to get there? I have. Have you ever seen someone deliver the desired outcome, but they caused way more chaos and fire drills than were necessary? I have. Have you ever seen anyone deliver an outcome, but they didn’t collaborate or inform folks along the way? I have. When people reach the outcome via poor means, that’s not a success and it likely does a fair amount of damage along the way. The means matter. As leaders and colleagues, we all need to be clear about the behaviors and means that we hope to see from each other.

The challenge: What are your goals? HOW will you go about achieving those goals?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Discussing Your Goals with Others (1-15-25)

Last week was about setting goals that resonate. This week is about the importance of discussing your goals with others.

A little over a week ago, my wife and I got a room in the library with a whiteboard and spent a few hours brainstorming goals for our family relating to health (physical, mental, social), raising the kids, building our relationship, family trips, and things to do with the house. Some of those are individual and some are joint goals. Basically, it’s a kick-off meeting for our family. Yes, it was the most romantic date ever 😉

Investing this time to share our goals with each other helps us do a few things. First, it creates a shared understanding of individual goals, so we can support each other. Second, talking through goals gives us a chance to make sure we are on the same page. We both have a goal of helping our kids continue to become more self sufficient, but there are a lot of different ways to do that. We were able to talk through what we felt we needed to focus on. Last but not least, sharing goals helps us see potential conflicts so we can handle them. For example, if we have goals about what major house projects we’d like to do that impacts how we will think about budgets for vacation and other spending throughout the year.

What does this have to do with anything? Have you ever felt like you worked in silos? I know I have. This is incredibly frustrating. Since the groups aren’t communicating, the different groups may not be aligned on what the goal is or they might even have goals that directly conflict with each other. We could likely avoid more of this if we did a better job of talking to each other about what our goals were. If we were more clear, we could align which brings power AND we could plan for how to handle things when the goals are in conflict with each other.

The challenge: How can you find ways to create a shared understanding of your goals to help achieve success?

Bonus- Here are a few goals we have this year. Sharing in case it inspires anyone.

Date nights- Monthly date night to be scheduled the second weekend of the month. If it doesn’t get scheduled it gets lost in the daily grind.
Vacations– at least 1 weeklong trip, and a 2-3 day trip in the fall and spring.
Work more reasonable hours- My personal goal is to shoot more for 40-50 hours per week and limited nights and weekends. Like many of us, I put in a lot of long days and nights during Q4. I realized that my workload wasn’t just rough for my mental health, but had a negative impact on my family’s energy as well. #needforextremeprioritization

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Ensuring Our Goals Resonate (1-8-25)

This week we are going to kick off a series focused on goals, and we will start by reflecting on whether or not our goals resonate.

For the past few years, I’ve set a generic goal to get healthier. Getting healthier might be a goal that resonated with other people, but if I’m honest, it was never really motivating and never really connected with me. It was too abstract of an idea. Over the past few months, I’ve lifted weights on a more consistent basis and I’m discovering how much I enjoy that. This year, instead of having a generic goal of getting healthier, I have a goal of building more strength. More specifically, I want to increase the amount of weight I lift on a weekly basis by 15-20% by the end of the year.

I understand that ultimately the idea of building strength is connected to the idea of getting healthier. However, the goal of building strength is so much more motivating to me. I enjoy lifting weights. I love the simplicity of knowing if I’m making progress or not on any given day. I get excited about making improvements whether it’s adding in a few extra reps or increasing how much I’m lifting at any given time. Building strength is a goal that resonates with me. It’s a goal I can rally behind and execute against. I don’t have that same passion for the generic goal of get healthier.

Let’s make some connections. Have you ever had a goal that didn’t resonate with you? Did you pursue that goal with the same zest as you did for something that truly connected with you? Think about common work goals. They include things like, drive sales, hit quota, decrease costs, improve market share, increase customer satisfaction, and deliver more value. These goals aren’t necessarily wrong. At the same time, they may not resonate with us. Maybe the goals are too abstract or maybe they are something that don’t exactly connect to what we value. We have to find a way to translate and create goals that connect with us. I’ve said for years my main goal at work is to deliver magic, which means doing the impossible. That idea may not make sense to anybody, but it gets me out of bed in the morning. It gives me something that I am excited about pursuing and delivering. It gives me fuel that sustains me throughout the year.

The challenge: What are your goals? Do they truly resonate with you?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

“Rebuild”- One Word or Phrase for the Year (1-2-25)

Happy New Year!

I hope you had a fabulous holiday! Kicking the blog off this year on a Thursday, since it’s my first day back in the office. This entry will focus on identifying a word/phrase that will serve as our north star for the year.

At the beginning of every year, I take time to reflect and choose a word or phrase that will be my north star for the year. I’ve found it helps ground me versus getting lost among setting too many goals. To identify my one word/phrase I ask myself things like: What went well last year that I want to continue? Where could things have been better? What do I want to achieve? How do I want to feel about things? What do I want to give more focus and energy toward this year? What do I want others to notice and say about me?

While there were some incredible parts of 2024, it was also a year that kicked my butt. The work demands and life stress threw me off center and out of balance in so many ways.

As a result, my word for 2025 is rebuild. As defined by Merriam-Webster rebuild is a verb that can mean to make extensive repairs AND to make extensive changes in. I like the dichotomy of those two ideas. One part is about building back, and another is building new. I need to do both.

So, what exactly do I need to rebuild? I need to rebuild and repair a better integration with life and work that doesn’t leave me burned out. I need to rebuild some boundaries and an ability to let things go so I don’t stress over them. I need to rebuild and change habits that ensure I’m taking care of all aspects of my health. As I’m shifting into a new decade of life, I need to rebuild who I am and what matters most to me.

The challenge: What is your one word or short phrase for the year? What is your north star?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

I Hope We are all like The Grinch (12-11-24)

This will be the last blog of 2024. 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. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and happy holidays for anything you might be celebrating! I hope you disconnect and recharge. I hope you find peace, love, and fulfillment.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

An Open Letter to 2024 (12-4-24)

As the year comes to a close, I’ve once again taken time to sit near my Christmas tree and reflect. Here is my open letter to 2024, and the lessons it gave me.

Dear 2024,

How’s it going? If I had to sum up my experience with you in one word it would be, “Whoa!” Whoa as in, “Whoa! What the heck just happened?” or “Whoa! That’s enough already. You don’t need to keep pouring it on.” And “Whoa! How in the world did we make it through all that?” You were tough from the get-go, and you never let up.

My theme for this year was to “Intentionally Invest” There were some places in life where I failed miserable in investing in the right things, and instead spent energy and time like crazy just trying to make it. There were other areas where I did invest well, and I’m already benefiting from the compound interest from those efforts.
I’m so thankful for my health and continue to understand why I shouldn’t ever take that for granted.
I hope that everyone finds a partner one day that loves them, supports them, cares for people, and holds things down the way my wife does. If you’ve already found someone like that, make sure you count your blessings.
If my kids were flowers, they would be in full bloom now, and that’s beautiful. If they were flowers, they would also be bright and colorful with creative weird patterns, who grow where they are planted while learning how to try out new soil.
My goal in my job is always to work magic, to find ways to do the seemingly impossible. I’m so proud of myself, because I know I worked magic this year. I worked blood magic, sweat magic, tears magic. I transformed dreams and wild ideas into reality and slayed the status quo like an evil dragon. And when the dementors tried to come and suck out my soul, I yelled, “Expecto patronum” and shined a bright light until they retreated. #Hufflepuff (Side note, I wonder what my patronus would be. Bonus points to anyone who gives me a good answer)
2024, you taught me how important it is to have a few good people you can lean on. I worked magic, because I could lean on them when I needed to. I hope you all have a squad of folks you can lean on when stuff gets hard.
Being seen and being valued are two of the most important gifts you can give someone. Never underestimate how much a kind word or gesture can mean. Special thanks to all the people who gave me those gifts this year.
When the going got tough, I didn’t put the team on my back, I brought them into my heart. There’s a difference. The back merely holds heavy weight. The heart holds weight, embraces the people, and still beats with hopeful energy. The heart is stronger than other muscles could ever hope to be.
This year reminded me how much strength there is in vulnerability, and how similar our experiences are as humans. I had a blog series where I talked about going to therapy, not knowing if people had any similar feelings or issues. I was blown away by the number of people who said, “Whoa! This is the same things I’m going through.” It was a good reminder that we are never truly alone, and that being brave enough to share our stories hopes us all.
I think almost everyone I’ve spoken to is on the verge of burnout or a breakdown. I pray we all recharge and we find ways to avoid this next year.
Speaking of recharge, I’m finally making some progress on taking care of myself physically. Been working out regularly and seeing increases in strength. I have a long way to go, but proud of my progress.
Whoa! That’s a lot for one year. I hope that 2025 is a little bit smoother around all the spiky edges 😉

The challenge: If you haven’t taken the time, take a few moments to reflect on 2024 and the lessons and emotions it gave you this year. How will these shape you moving forward?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Finishing Strong, Resting, and Being Mindful of our Pace (11-20-24)

This week we are going to have a one-off entry about finishing the year strong and reflecting on running races, our pace, and finish lines.

Let’s say that I’m running a race. I just passed mile marker 12 and the next marker will be 13.1. Should I go all out and sprint until I hit 13.1 miles? It depends on how far the race is. If it’s a half marathon, then 13.1 miles is the finish line. I can go all out, because after that I’ll have days and weeks of recovery before I push myself that hard again. If it’s a marathon, then 13.1 miles is only halfway, and going all out will only exhaust me and decrease my chances of finishing strong without injuries.

What does this have to do with anything? How many times have you heard, “We need to finish the year strong!” during a staff meeting, a town hall, etc.? Per our race analogy, when we think about finishing strong, we need to understand where the finish line truly is. We need to adjust our pace and effort based on where the finish line is and our ability to rest and recover.

Earlier in my career, I felt like Q4 was a true a finish line. Finishing the year strong meant sprinting hard AND knowing that I’d have time to recover and would be able to ease into the next year before sprinting right away again. Over the past few years, I’ve come to feel like there really isn’t a clear finish line anymore. Just the other day someone was talking about how Q4 isn’t the end of the year but is really just the kick-off to having a strong Q1. It’s like everything blurs together into a frantic frenzy. I end up going all out in Q4 only to find myself spending the holidays sick, burned out, and exhausted both physically and mentally. By the time the new year rolls around, I’m still not recovered, and I’m being asked to start sprinting right away. Does that sound familiar? Somewhere there must be a happy medium, where we work hard without running ourselves into the ground and starting the next year burned out from the moment it starts. Somewhere, there has to be a happy medium where we take care of ourselves and each other.

Challenge 1: How can we all be more mindful of our pace and its sustainability as we close out the year?

Challenge 2: How can you lead and set a pace that is sustainable? (Ex: When is the last time you clearly told your team that you don’t want them to run themselves into the ground, and made trade-off decisions where you would be okay with some things not getting done?)

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Impostor Syndrome and Being Confident in Who You Are (11-13-24)

This will be our last entry about impostor syndrome. This week is about how being confident in who we are helps fight impostor syndrome.

A few months ago, someone reached out to me to speak about AI at an upcoming market research conference. As I’ve mentioned before, Impostor Syndrome takes chances like this to whisper to me that I’m not a technical expert. Normally, that would make me feel bad. However, this time I redirected the whispers from Impostor Syndrome.

I responded back to the individual and I said, “Thanks for the invite. I want to be clear on my role. If you are looking for a tech expert who knows all the ins and outs, that’s not me. I’ll be happy to connect you to someone who can do that for you. If you’re looking for a dreamer who is trying to drive solutions and change in his org, I’d be happy to chat.” The person responded and let me know they were looking for the latter, and that made me feel confident I could deliver. My impostor feelings instantly evaporated, and now I’m on a panel to speak at TMRE (The Market Research Event) in a few weeks. #pumped

Let’s connect some more dots. Do you ever feel like you need to be all things to all people? I do. This is one of the easiest ways to get lured into a situation where you are an impostor. The way to defend against this is to know who you are, what your strengths are, and what your weaknesses are. In our story, I leveraged the whispers of Impostor Syndrome to make sure I’d never be an impostor. It told me that I wasn’t X, and I said, “Based on the evidence you’re right. If they want X, I’m not the guy. If they want Y, then I’m a good fit.” Once I confirmed they wanted Y, all doubts and worries of being an impostor went away, because I know who I am.

The challenge: Will you confidently embrace who you are and who you aren’t?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

When and Why Impostor Syndrome Shows Up (11-6-24)

Spiritual Growth Last week was about impostor syndrome and listening to the positive whispers. This week is about understanding when and why impostor syndrome rears its ugly head.

I’ve had a lot more impostor syndrome over the past couple of months than I normally do. This has caused me to pause and wonder why, which led me to an epiphany. Impostor syndrome doesn’t show up as I brush my teeth. It doesn’t show up when I make myself breakfast in the morning or when I drive into work. Impostor syndrome doesn’t show up whenever I’m doing anything at home or work that is routine or easy.

Do you know when impostor syndrome shows up? It shows up when I’m pushing boundaries. It shows up when I’m doing something new. It shows up when I’m doing something challenging. All of those things bring nervousness and fear, and that’s when impostor syndrome shows up. Everything I’m doing at work right now involves challenging the status quo, carving paths through new frontiers, and pushing myself as a leader further than I thought possible. No wonder impostor syndrome has been so loud lately. 😉

What does this have to do with anything? When impostor syndrome first shows up, I often think it’s a me problem. I view it as a sign of my own weakness. I view it as a warning that I’m about to fail. Do you ever feel this way? Now, I’m beginning to view impostor syndrome a little differently. If impostor syndrome only shows up when I’m pushing myself, then impostor syndrome isn’t a sign of my weakness. Impostor syndrome is actually a sign that I’m on the verge of growing. If I view it this way, I can lean in and push forward instead of being paralyzed by it.

The challenge: How will you reinterpret what impostor syndrome means?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry