Obstacles and Celebrating Progress/Small Wins (10-15-25)

Last week was about embracing the grimy path to success. This week is about failed rope climbs, conquered warped walls, and celebrating progress and small wins.

I failed the warped wall 3 times at Frontline OCR back in May, which resulted in some nasty friction burns on my leg. With that in mind, I came into the recent Midwest OCR looking for redemption. The first obstacle I ran into was the rope climb. I did not complete this obstacle. HOWEVER, I’m so excited, because for the first time in my life, I actually hooked my feet correctly. I got further than I’ve ever made it. Then, when I got to the warped wall, I finally beat that thing! I latched onto the rope and knew I wasn’t letting go until I had finished climbing the wall. I had so much adrenaline running through my body after completing the wall that I thought I might pass out.

What does this have to do with anything? It would have been easy for me to call my race a failure. I failed obstacles. I was slower than I wanted to be. I didn’t win. However, I view it a success because of the progress and small wins I had. Now think about work for a minute. How often do you pause to celebrate progress and small wins? Be honest. If you’re anything like me, it’s so easy to get focused on the end goal with a win/lose mentality that I don’t pause at work. Then, I find myself feeling stuck or like a failure, all because I haven’t opened my eyes to the progress that has been made. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? It doesn’t have to be this way. We can all be celebrating small wins on a more regular basis.

The challenge: How will you ensure you are celebrating progress and small wins along the way?

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

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