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

Stepping Away from the Heat (7-16-25)

Last week we kicked off a series of lessons my family learned when our air conditioning went out. This entry is about stepping away from the heat.

Our air conditioning was down for around a week or so. We spent the first five of those days staying at home, trying to keep cool, while the temperature continually rose in the house. By the fifth day, we were all sick of consistently being hot, sweaty, and uncomfortable. We were all low key grumpy and irritated at each other and the world.

While it wasn’t ideal, I decided to get us a hotel room just down the street for the night. It might sound silly, but this made a HUGE difference. Everyone had a chance to step away from the environment for a day and be more comfortable. It gave us a chance to recharge and recenter. The next day, we opted to drive over to my parents’ house and have a sleepover in the middle of the week, which my kids thought was the best thing ever. After stepping away for a couple of days we had recharged and were ready to handle the heat and other things life threw in our direction.

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything. When we first went to the hotel room, we weren’t aware of the toll the heat was taking on us. We didn’t realize how agitated we had become. Stepping away from that heat not only gave us perspective, but it gave us a chance to recharge.

Think about your life for a minute. Maybe there’s a challenge at work. Maybe there’s a challenge at home. Maybe there is a tough environment. Sure, you could just stay in that environment every day, but sooner or later that will wear you down. You might need to step away from it for a minute. You might need to step away to clear your mind. You might need to step away into a better feeling environment to reground. You might need to step away, so you can recharge. The heat of life is always going to be there, but that doesn’t mean you have to stay in it all the time.

The challenge: Will you recognize when you need to step away from the heat?

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

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

Learning to Listen to What You Need (7-10-24)

I hope you all enjoyed the 4^th of July holiday! The last entry was about expanding your comfort zone. This entry is about listening to what you need.

Cam came home after a particularly long rehearsal and was irritable. It had been a long week of rehearsals and other commitments. He was exhausted and grouchy. He comes home and says, “I’m grumpy. I just need to go flump.” In our house, flumping is like collapsing onto a softer cushiony service like a bed or a chair. Sometimes the flump also includes snuggling, reading, or just listening to music. In this instance, Cam flumped on his bed in his room and read his favorite book for 10-15 minutes. He then emerged from his room feeling so much better and was ready to face the world again. (Pic from Pawz Pet Café where you can go to snuggle some cats. #advancedflumping)

What does this have to do with anything? I love and am so impressed with how well Cameron can listen to what he needs in a moment and then act on that. He knew he was irritable and grumpy, and he knew that all he needed was 10-15 minutes to read to recharge his batteries. That’s wisdom and awareness that I don’t always have.

Meanwhile, here is how things play out for me. I don’t fully understand how upset I am at the moment and continue to keep pushing forward while a lot of time goes by. Eventually, I accidentally stumble into doing something along the way that is what I need whether that’s going on a walk, writing, reading a book, or something else. All of a sudden I feel a bit better, and then I say to myself, “Dang, I didn’t realize how much negative energy I was carrying. I wish I would have paused and did this thing sooner to deal with it.” Anyone else like that, or is it just me? I’m getting a bit better at listening to myself, but I’m not where I want to be yet.

The challenge: How can we do a better job of listening to ourselves and taking action?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Batteries and Shutting Down vs. Recharging (11-6-13)

Pink. Fluffy. Drum. Rabbit. Energizer Bunny. What an interesting mascot for quite an inventive contraption, the battery. Think of how revolutionary the battery was when it was first introduced. Now a days, batteries can store tons of energy, can dispense it through various methods, and many batteries can even be recharged.

I’ve been thinking a lot about energy and batteries over the past few months leading up to the various meeting cycles. I think we can all agree that these few months have been draining. If the Energizer Bunny was doing our work he would have had to take a break by now.

This got me thinking. Do you shut off or do you recharge?

By design batteries need to do both and we do too. Battery powered devices need to shut off in order to preserve the life of the battery. We need to shut it down from time to time and disconnect from work in order to preserve our heartbeats, our battery life.

The thing is that shutting off is not the same as recharging. There is a big difference between deciding not to use any additional energy and doing something that refills the energy tank. Batteries need to be put in one of the chargers that can transfer energy back into them. We need to do the same. Are we finding those recharging stations? Are we serving as those recharging stations for others? I didn’t realize how bad I needed a recharge until last night. It was the end of the day, I was beat, tired, exhausted. I was invited to a breakout room after the final general session. This room was filled with customer experience champs. They were totally nerds for helping others. They were sharing stories about trying to push the movement forward, sharing successes, AND failures (because they are brave enough to roll that way). You could see it in the room. We were all tired, but as we talked it’s like our energy meters started going from red to green again. I’m sure none of them planned to recharge everyone like that, but that’s what happens when we unleash some of the things that give us energy to push on.

Now, are we all 100% fluffy Energizer Bunnies? No. We will still need to shut down and recuperate, but what I do know is that the energy they gave me put some fuel in the tanks. Do you shut off or do you recharge?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry