Races and Different Ways of Recharging (10-21-25)

Blog coming to you today, because I’m out of office tomorrow. 😉 This week is about different ways of recharging.

This might not make any sense to anyone. My racing hobby is one of my favorite things to do to RECHARGE my batteries. Right now, at least one of you is thinking, “So, running/hiking for miles in the heat, crawling through rock and mud, climbing on stuff, carrying heavy things, and picking up all kinds of bumps and bruises is recharging for you. Is there something wrong with you?” It’s a fair question 😉 All of those things are true, AND it’s time outside, mainly on my own without any distractions. It’s a time to be with my thoughts. It’s also a time to discover and push past my limits which is invigorating. Because of those things and more, races might take a lot of physical energy, but they fill so many of my other energy buckets.

Let’s connect some dots. Whenever I find myself feeling stressed or tired from work, one of my first instincts is that I need to rest to recharge. Resting looks taking it easy all day, not doing anything, and maybe even fitting in a nap. Sometimes, this helps me feel a bit better. Sometimes, it doesn’t. It’s not that resting was bad. It just wasn’t what I needed at the time.

Over the past few years, I’ve learned that when I need to recharge, sometimes I need to rest and other times I need something different. Sometimes, recharging looks like reading or writing blogs and poems. Sometimes, recharging is playing with Legos. Sometimes, recharging looks like hanging out with my family. Sometimes, recharging is being by myself for a period of time. Sometimes recharging is a good workout or an obstacle course race. How do you recharge?

The challenge: How are you being intentional about recharging in these busy and stressful times?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Time, Perspective, and Type 2 Fun (9-22-25)

A bottle of white liquid pouring out of a dropper

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Happy Monday!

You’re getting a blog on Monday, because I’m going to do a few things for work this morning, and then I’m taking the rest of the week off. Last week was about making the most of a situation. This week is about time, perspective, and type 2 fun.

Recap: Diane and a 4-month-old Alice are living with my parents. It’s chaos. My wife is looking at potential houses to buy, which is totally stressing her out. My dad goes with my wife to check out houses to help out with Alice. Anyway, they go to a house and long story short, my dad knocks over the bottle of Alice’s milk and gets it all over the dining room table in the house. This takes an already stressful situation and makes it worse. They are frantically cleaning it up, and Diane is worried about potentially ruining someone’s table and is feeling more overwhelmed than ever. Ultimately, everything is okay. Fast forward a few hours, and the milk spilling incident has turned from super stressful to hilarious. They tell the story to my mom when she comes home, and everyone is laughing. Fast forward to today, and the milk spilling incident is one of our favorite stories to tell.

Let’s connect some dots. When you read the story above, I hope you smiled or chuckled a bit. It’s kind of funny. It’s also a situation we can all relate to. Maybe you didn’t spill milk, but we’ve all made a mess which turned a stressful situation into something even worse. However, with a little time and perspective, we can begin to see the humor in the moment. My family calls these kinds of things type 2 fun, a phrase we learned from a friend. Type 1 fun is when the situation is enjoyable and funny as it happens. Type 2 fun is when the situation is bad at the moment, but later on you see the joy and humor in it. As I get older, I’ve learned that most initially stressful situations in life end up as Type 2 fun.

The challenge: When you run into something tough/stressful/bad will you be able to create the distance and perspective to see the joy and humor?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Obstacle Course Racing and Avoiding Injury

Happy Monday,

I have a bonus blog for you about obstacle course racing and avoiding injury.

Whenever I do a race, I have 3 goals: don’t get injured, enjoy myself, and finish. My safety and health always come first because not only do I want to be able to do more races, but I have a life outside of racing where I want to be a great husband, dad, and friend. When I began my race on Saturday, I started off running. Very quickly, I felt the pain in my leg, giving me a signal that something wasn’t quite right. I have a history of stress fractures and knew this could lead to an injury. At this point, I had a choice. I could keep running and risk injury or I could slow down and walk. The young and less wise Andrew would have kept running and likely hurt himself. I decided to slow down and walk. While I might have been slower than I had hoped, I enjoyed the trails, had fun tackling the obstacles, and overall had a great time. Best of all, my leg (and the rest of me) feels pretty good today!

What does this have to do with work? I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen and heard of a lot of people running themselves into the ground at work. It’s like they are running with leg pain and keep running until the bone eventually snaps. Have you seen this? Have you experienced this? I know I have.

In the story this week, I mention how there is more to my life than just races, which is why my health and safety is so important. In a similar way, while work is important, it’s not the only thing in our lives. We are more than just employees. When we push past exhaustion at work, not only are we less effective at work, but we’re not the spouse, partner, parent, friend, etc. that we’d like to be. At least that’s what I’ve found from first-hand experience.

The Challenge: How can we pay attention to the pain signals and adjust accordingly before we get injured?

The Leader Challenge: How are you creating an environment that protects people from being ran into the ground?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

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

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

Recharging and Mental Health (10-2-24)

Last week I finished the series on lessons I’ve learned from therapy. This week I want to touch on one more mental health lesson, before moving to new topics. Today, I want to touch on the importance of recharging for our mental health.

Let me start by saying that everyone is okay. Here’s the story. On Friday, I drove a few hours away for an obstacle course race on Saturday. On Saturday morning around 1am, I received a text that a family member was in the hospital. I packed up and drove the 3.5 hours home to see what was going on. It was a long day of waiting and little sleep. Eventually, I felt good about everything and went home.

When I got home I sent a couple of emails to folks letting them know what was going on and that I wouldn’t be at work on Monday. Then, the guilt started to set in. On Saturday night and Sunday morning this little voice started whispering, “You’re really behind at work. You’re going to be even more behind, because you aren’t working on Monday. You should start doing work right now. You’re not doing anything else right now. You’re just staying at the house. You’re just sitting there. You could be doing work to catch up.” Have you ever had something like this happen to you? Have you ever heard guilt whisper to you like this?

For a moment, I almost gave into that voice. Then, I paused for a second and I assessed how I was feeling. I was sleep deprived, physically tired, and emotionally exhausted. Working is not what I needed. I wasn’t sitting around doing “nothing”. I was recharging. I was catching my breath. I was taking care of myself. I was being present with my family. After embracing these things, I let go of the urge to work.

What does this have to do with anything? I don’t know about you, but it’s easy to get lost in the hustle and grind. It’s easy to subscribe to this idea that we should be doing something every moment of every day to better ourselves and deliver for the business. This is the same mentality that leads to burnout. We don’t always need to be running ourselves into the ground. We need to challenge that voice of guilt. We need to embrace that sometimes we need to do “nothing”. Sometimes, we need to slow down, reconnect, and recharge for our own sake and for the sake of others.

The challenge- Will you allows yourself to recharge when you need to?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Therapy and Investing Effort (9-25-24)

This will be my last in the series about lessons I’ve learned from therapy. We started with asking for help, analyzed root causes, and explored thought traps and radical acceptance. We will end by reflecting on therapy and investing effort.

As I mentioned in the first blog, I leveraged our Lyra services for therapy. Going through this experience consisted of a few different things like live sessions, assessments, articles to read, and online videos to watch. We were a few weeks in, and I was telling my therapist that I appreciated the different resources. She shared that she was concerned she was assigning me too much, because she recognized that I was busy in life. I thanked her for her consideration and told her that she was not overburdening me. I explained that I wanted the materials, because I knew how important it was to invest in my mental health. I came to her, because life was kicking my butt, so my number one goal was to work through that. As a result, I was committed to investing in my mental health, and I made the necessary trade-offs to do this.

How does this connect to anything? So much of life is about putting in effort to grow. The challenge is that there are so many domains in life we could invest int. We can put in effort for our physical health, mental health, relationships, parenting, careers, etc. This can be overwhelming, especially if we allow ourselves to fall in the trap of thinking that we need to master and max out all of those domains. Instead, we need embrace that everything can’t get equal focus all the time, AND THAT’S OKAY. For me, in that period of my life, I over indexed on my mental health, because I needed that. I did the extra work in that space and deprioritized other things. As my life moves from season to season, I know I’ll continue to evolve where I put the work in and how I invest my effort.

The challenge: Where will you invest your effort?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Patios and Unplugging from Work (6-5-24)

This is the last in our series about patio furniture. This week will be about patios and unplugging from work.

Now that we have some comfy patio furniture and have created a better space, I’ve more or less made it a habit to spend a decent amount on my back patio every night. Sometimes, I sit back there and hang out with my family. We talk and catch up on the day together. Sometimes, I sit out there and read a book. Sometimes, I sit out there and just zone out, checking out the flowers, birds, and bunnies hopping along throughout the neighborhood. After a long day of handling work and family commitments, it’s nice to take a few moments to unplug and recenter.

What does this have to do with anything? Often when we talk about unplugging from work, we talk about unplugging over the weekend or during a long vacation. This implies that throughout the week we remain plugged into work. I know I’ve fallen into this cycle of feeling tethered to work all throughout the week and the pressure of always feeling on. Have you? I know that when I go through periods where I stay plugged into work around the clock I begin to burnout, which has a negative impact on all aspects of my life.

While it might not be as long as a weekend or as big of an adventure as vacation, I’ve found that my daily time hanging out on my patio has been incredibly valuable. Not only is it nice to unplug in the moment to enjoy time with family or appreciate the beauty around me, but it also has positive effects that last beyond that time on the patio. When I disconnect on a regular basis, even if it’s just for a few minutes, I feel more centered and capable of taking on what life throws my way. These little moments of unplugging are incredibly powerful, and I think we can all find moments like these in our daily life whether it’s chilling on a patio or engaging in another activity that makes you feel whole.

The challenge: How can you unplug and recenter on a more regular basis?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lies of P, Poison Levels, and Stress (3-20-24)

Last week was about blaming the controller vs taking accountability. This week is about Lies of P, poison levels, and stress.

My kids were watching me play, and they noticed that I started losing health. They were confused, and they asked me why I was losing health even when the monsters weren’t hitting me. I explained to them that the area I was in was full of poison (called Corruption in the game). At first, the poison doesn’t do anything. It just slowly builds up. However, once it hits a critical limit, the poison begins damaging my character, and my health quickly fades. In order to survive, I needed to equip poison resistant armor, use items that reduce poison, and find safe places where there wasn’t poison.

What does this have to do with anything? Instead of it being a level in a video game, let’s call it work or life. Instead of it being poison in a video game, let’s call it stress. Similar to my video game, the stress level builds over time. At first, I don’t even notice it. The levels rise over time, and then all of a sudden it hits HARD. Anyone else been there? When this happens, I’m no longer the person, husband, dad, friend, and employee I want to be or could be.

We are never going to live in a world without stress. However, we can try to be more cognizant of stress, our current stress levels, and what we can do. Similar to the poison armor, I know I handle stress better when I’m routinely taking care of myself. Similar to the item that takes poison away, I know that getting outside, moving my body, and talking with someone helps clear stress out of my system. Similar to needing to find a poison free space in the game, sometimes I know that I just need to step back and away from everything.

The challenge: How will you recognize and deal with rising stress levels?

Bonus vulnerability moment- The short version is that the last few months have been hard in many aspects of life. Using our analogy, my poison/stress meter had been overflowing for some time, and I wasn’t who I wanted to be. I decided to leverage our Lyra benefit and talk to a therapist for the first time. During our initial conversation I said, “I’m surviving right now, but I want more than that. I deserve more than that. My family does too. I need tools or something to help me.” It’s only been a couple of sessions so far, but I’m so thankful I reached out. I share all of this to say that if you’re talking to someone, you’re not alone AND I’m proud of you for asking for help. If you’re thinking of talking to someone, you’re not alone, AND I’m proud of you for recognizing that you might benefit from help. It’s okay to want/need help sometimes. It’s part of being human.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Discomfort, Paralysis, and the Glacier Leap (2-7-24)

Last week was about discomfort and psychological safety. This week is about discomfort, paralysis, and the Glacier Leap.

The Glacier Leap is one of the obstacles at the Abominable Snow Race. You start by climbing up an incline wall (covered in snow/ice/slush) until you are on top of the first structure and about 7 or 8 feet off the ground. This is where things get interesting. You have to jump to the next structure making sure you position your body correctly and grab the bar tightly or you will fall.

When I got to the top of the structure, I watched as people would stand at the edge and peer down. You could feel them becoming more and more uncomfortable until they ultimately became paralyzed at the thought of falling. At that point, they wouldn’t jump. Instead, they’d turn around and climb down without ever giving it a try. I knew that the same thing would happen to me if I didn’t move quickly. I made a decision. I would step up to the edge, count out loud, and jump on three. Any more hesitation and the discomfort would turn to fear would turn to paralysis. So, I stepped up, counted to three and jumped! My hands grasped the bar, my feet hit a patch of ice on the wood, and I instantly slid down and fell. It wasn’t exactly pleasant. 😉 At this point, I was determined (or dumb), and refused to let this obstacle beat me. I climbed back up. This time I had an advantage, because I knew exactly what the discomfort felt like. I knew exactly what falling felt like. I had survived, and now those things weren’t so scary. I stepped up, counted to three, and jumped! This time I made it! With my heart beating out of my chest, I stepped up and jumped to the next platform! Success!

What does this have to do with anything? Whether you’re doing an obstacle course race or performing your role at work, sooner or later we all run into a patch of discomfort. When that happens it is easy for the discomfort to turn into fear which turns into paralysis. Have you ever experienced this at work? I know I have. I’ve walked out of situations and said, “I wish I would have asked this. I wish I would have said that. I wish I would have done something different, but I just froze.”

I wish I had a magic way to avoid this, but I haven’t uncovered one yet. All I’ve found is that once the discomfort starts setting in, I need to move. I need to take some kind of action before the discomfort becomes fear and before the fear becomes paralysis. During the obstacle course race I counted to three and then jumped. Counting was the trigger to move. What could your trigger to move be at work? Maybe you write down the statement or question you think you’ll want to make, so when you start to freeze you can just read off the paper. Maybe your action isn’t dealing with something that day, but scheduling time on calendars to handle it in the future. Maybe it’s recognizing that the paralysis is taking over and just stepping out of the situation to catch your breath.

The challenge: How will you ensure discomfort doesn’t paralyze you?

#yetination #abominablesnowrace

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry