Seeing the Bigger Picture before Making Judgments (8-14-24)

This will be the last in my series about lessons I’ve learned from being a parent. This week is all about taking time to understand the bigger picture before making a judgment.

We had a fabulous time on vacation. However, if you would have seen my family on Monday afternoon, it would have been easy to conclude that we were all bad people who hated each other, because we were so grumpy and irritable. If you took a step back and looked at the bigger picture, you might think a little differently. We had been on vacation for 2 weeks and desperately wanted to get home. We had been traveling all day. We were exhausted, rushed, overwhelmed, etc. Understanding all of this, you would likely conclude that we were good people who just had a long day. You’d give us grace and patience.

What does this have to do with anything? Have you ever had a negative experience with someone and instantly decided that they were bad? I have. Someone has been in a bad mood, and I’ve made the snap decision that they must be a jerk. Someone didn’t do something well at work, and I’ve made the snap decision that they don’t have the right skills. It’s so easy to make judgments based on a snapshot in time vs on the bigger picture and a confirmed pattern of behavior. The majority of time, these snap decisions are wrong.

Maybe the person is a jerk, or maybe they are going through something incredibly difficult in life and they are carrying more stress than usual. I know that I’ve unintentionally lashed out at people, when I carried stress that had nothing to do with them. Maybe the person doesn’t have the necessary skills, or maybe they had a different vision for what was supposed to occur or maybe they are just human and made a mistake. I know I’ve made mistakes before. Making these snap judgments often lead to the worst possible paths for all parties involved.

The challenge: Will you take the time to see the bigger picture before passing judgment?

Bonus: The pic is my family on the boat outside of Gibraltar. You might notice our travel sheep. He is a special stuffed animal who ONLY goes on vacations with us, so the other stuffed animals are left at home. I can tell you’re jealous. 😉 Fun fact. The travel sheep went through the security at the airport, fell out of the bin in the x-ray machine, and confused the machine so bad that it caused about 8 bins of stuff to have to be rescanned. That sheep is baaaaaa-d news!

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

First Grade Spelling, Setting Expectations, and Offering Grace (8-25-21)

Last week was about school and creating the right environment. This week is about expectations and grace. It’s inspired by Alice’s first grade teacher from public school.

Alice hasn’t ever been the best speller. My wife and I talked about this with her first grade teacher during a parent teacher conference. The teacher told us that Alice was the middle of the pack, that we shouldn’t be too alarmed, and that we could keep working with her to help her sound out words. After that, the teacher dropped this nugget. “I always tell my students that when we are writing our stories there is no such thing as perfect spelling in first grade. They are going to misspell words, and that’s okay. As long as they start a sentence with a capital letter and end it with punctuation, it’s a beautiful sentence.”

You might be wondering what that has to do with expectations and grace. With that one nugget about misspelling words and making a beautiful sentence that teacher did two things. First, she set the expectation for what was important. She was trying to teach the kids about sentence structure, more specifically about capital letters and punctuation at the end of the sentence. The misspelled words didn’t matter, as long as they did the other parts right. Second, she taught the children about grace and mistakes. She told the kids that they were going to mess up and that was okay. Can you imagine the burden she took off the children’s shoulders when she gave them permission to not be perfect?

Overall, what the teacher did was great leadership. Reflect on your own leadership for a moment. How often do you communicate a clear vision about what is important and what we need to focus on (capital letters and punctuation)? How often do you give people grace to make mistakes along the way (it’s okay to misspell words)? I know I could do better in these areas.

The challenge: Can you set clear expectations while also extending grace?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Emotional Weight and Grace (10-7-20)

Last week was about setbacks and taking the next step forward. This week is about emotional weight and extending grace.

I can’t speak for my wife, but the thing that surprised me most about her whole health ordeal was the emotional weight I found myself carrying. The emotional weight was comprised of my fear, anxiety, stress, worry, and concern about her, my girls, myself, work, and other things. If I’m being honesty, I’m still not sure how well I carried that weight. If I’m being real, I know that as a result of carrying all that weight I was less than the best version of myself for basically all of August in all the roles I play in life: husband, dad, friend, co-worker, and human. I had less patience. I couldn’t focus as much. I was irritable. I wasn’t as smart, efficient, or good at my job. During that month you probably got the “C” version of Andrew Embry, and I’m thankful that folks extended me grace during this time and forgave me of my shortcomings. This small act of extending a little grace, meant the world to me and helped me feel a little bit safer and secure in a crazy time.

What does this have to do with anything? There are a few connections. First, no matter how much we talk about compartmentalizing things, the emotional weight that is carried outside of work will sooner or later impact you at work. Second, you never quite know what might be creating emotional weight for the people you work with. Maybe they have something going on at home. Maybe they are impacted by current events. Maybe they are being impacted by their own self-doubts and insecurities. Finally, when we see someone who isn’t their best self that day, it’s easy to blame theme. It’s easy to believe it’s because of some character flaw or shortcoming they have. These things could be true, or maybe the person is carrying weight you don’t know about. In these situations, extending a little grace before passing judgment can make all the difference.

The challenge: Will you recognize the weight others carry? Will you extend grace before judgment?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry