An Open Letter to 2025 (12-3-25)

The year is coming to an end, and I’ve been spending a bit of time by my Christmas tree reflecting. Here is my open letter to 2025.

Dear 2025,

Your friend 2024 was rough, and if I’m being honest, kind of beat the crap out of me. You on the other hand, were a bit of a rainbow unicorn dancing in the midst of a thunderstorm. Yes, things were sometimes as chaotic as heck, but you were beautiful with a touch of magic and everything I needed.

My theme for the year was “Rebuild”. As I shared in my first blog of the year, after getting beat down, I needed to make extensive repairs AND changes. I did just that. I had better work/life integration than I’ve had in years. I’m ending the year with a solid foundation that should serve me well in 2026.
I continue to be thankful for my health. While I have room to grow, I rebuilt some of my health habits, and I’m at least exercising more regularly than I have for the past few years. I’m looking forward to accelerating this next year.
It’s easy to forget that love is a verb. Words are nice, but without actions, they aren’t love. Words without actions are just empty gestures. Love is active. Love is listening, helping, taking accountability, being vulnerable, growing to be a better partner/person, and more.
Speaking of love, my wife is incredible. Every year I spend with her I am in deeper awe of her strength and how much she cares about me and our kids. I wish everyone had a partner in their life like her that made them better and made them want to be better.
My kids are 11 and 13 and continue to come into their own. I’m proud of them for their accomplishments, but I’m most proud of them for how they are growing into good people. People who care. People who are brave enough to own their mistakes and repair situations. If they grow up and all they are is good people that will be the best outcome that could ever occur.
I’ve spent the last year of work as a Mad Scientist/Willy Wonka hybrid character, and that’s been so enjoyable to see dreams come to fruition.
The chance to deliver magic at work increases when you have the right people in the right roles with the right leadership surrounded by the right team. It’s hard for those things to line up, and I’m thankful to have lived that this year.
Are the people at work just people you work with or are they teammates and partners? There’s a difference. Something incredible happens when you can get talented people to see a common vision and build toward that together.
Is it real pressure or is it self-pressure? Often, we do more damage to ourselves with our own made-up expectations than we do based on the real expectations.
Hard times suck AND they are often great teachers. They teach you who cares. They teach you what matters.
Plant things now. Maybe you’ve missed your moment like I have in the past. That’s okay. That moment is gone, so plant now for a better future.
2025, you’ve been good to me. Thank you!

The challenge: If you haven’t taken the time, take a few moments to reflect on 2025 and the lessons and emotions it gave you this year. How will these shape you moving forward?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Parenting and Setting Incentives (2-19-25)

Last week was about parenting, cleaning the house, and being flexible. This week is about parenting and creating incentives.

We already have 2 cats in our house, but my son Cameron (11) really wants his own cat. My wife and I ultimately agreed that he could get one for his 12^th birthday. Cam, ever the negotiator, talked to his to uncover what he could do to get it sooner and said he was willing to do anything to make this happen. My wife and I saw this as an opportunity to provide an incentive for Cam to do the right thing to earn the cat sooner.

Before setting the incentive, the first thing my wife and I did was talk about our overarching goal for Cam, which is for him to grow up to be a kind and compassionate self-sufficient human. From there, we got VERY SPECIFIC about what behaviors he could work on building now that would lead to this. Based on our understanding of our son, we settled on three things. First, we wanted him to get better at doing his chores without being asked or reminded, because this would help him learn how to take care of himself and his future house. Second, we wanted to help him get better at stepping outside of his comfort zone, which in this case includes trying new foods which is really hard for him. Third, we wanted him to continue to develop the ability to advocate for himself in situations, whether that is clearly expressing a boundary or just speaking up for himself. With these things in mind, I developed a point system and Excel sheet tracker that shows his progress over time. If he does those three things relatively consistently he will get his cat early. We talked to Cam about these things, and he’s on board. We even through in some extra hard bonus things worth a lot of points, and he’s strongly considering doing those things too.

How does this connect with anything? Often when we think of incentives we think of base pay, bonuses, or some other compensation. However, in my experience, we don’t do the best job thinking about the behaviors we are trying to drive in a culture or an organization. Then, since we haven’t truly thought about the behaviors we are trying to drive, we don’t have a way to directly link those behaviors with incentives (compensation, bonuses, verbal praise, Inspire points, etc.). Without that direct link, it’s difficult to reinforce the behaviors we want to see, which makes it hard to drive behavior change.

The challenge- Do you know what behaviors you are trying to drive? Do your incentives connect to those behaviors?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Marriage and Equal Effort (6-7-23)

Last week was about marriage and small acts of recognition. This week is about marriage and the concept of equal effort. When I was first married, I think I wanted to make sure things were always equal. For example, I’d handle the dishes one time, and she’d handle them the next time. When taken too far, this created resentment. Have you ever said to yourself, “I’m doing all the work around here. They are a lazy punk!”? Maybe that’s just me 😉

Over time, I realized that our relationship would never be 100% equal for a few different reasons. First, we have different skillsets, and we should make the most of those skillsets. Second, we have different interests or aversions to different household tasks. For example, my wife enjoys cooking and I don’t particularly like it. My wife HATES cleaning bathrooms with the fire of a thousand suns, and while it’s not my favorite thing to do, it doesn’t trigger intense loathing for me. The third reason is that on any given day/week/month we might have more or less capacity to handle things. If we need 100 units of effort to run our house, sometimes we both have plenty of energy and can split that 50/50. Sometimes, one of us might need to recharge, so they can only put forward 20 and the other person picks up the 80. Sometimes, we are both worn down, and we agree that there is no way we can get to 100. At that point, we just agree that we need to hunker down, lower our expectations to just making it through the night without killing everyone, and probably put on a movie for the night. Anyone else been here? At the end of the day, as long as we are both contributing to our greater whole, we are doing the right things.

What does this have to do with anything? This has some parallels with other relationships we have whether it’s family, friends, or work colleagues. It’s easy to get fixated on the idea of equal effort meaning that everyone needs to contribute the exact same amount. Instead, contribution doesn’t always have to be exactly equal, as long as we find a way to ensure the contributions add up to the greater whole. We can think about contribution from the other lenses we explored including skillsets, what people enjoy/dislike, and individual capacity. Where does it make sense to have them lean more heavily into their strengths? Where does it make sense to have them lean into their passions? How do we adjust things based on an individual’s capacity (work, emotional, physical, and mental)?

The challenge: How will you think differently about relationships and equal effort?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Are you investing in relationships when times are tough? (5-13-20)

This week we are going to start a series inspired by investments. This week is about investing in relationships, even when times are tough.

COVID has unleashed ripple effects across our entire economy which has created volatility in the market. As a result, there have been many individuals who have withdrawn their investments and/or stopped investing. Instead, they focus on conserving whatever resources they currently have. The individuals who are doing this are focused primarily on the short-term. Other individuals might look at things more long-term and choose to continue to invest during these times, believing that the long-term benefits will be more than what they are currently putting into the market.

What does this have to do with anything? What if I told you the above situation wasn’t about money or stocks? What if I told you the above situation was about investing in your relationships with others? How would that change how you thought about things?

I don’t know about you, but in times of stress I’ve found that it is easy for me to become consumed by work or the situation at hand. As a result, I stop putting time and effort into the relationships with the people around me, and I withdraw inside myself. This might help me short-term, because it conserves energy. However, long-term those relationships have weakened and have lost the opportunity to grow into what they could have been. I’d argue that when times are tough it’s even MORE important to invest in the relationships with the people around you, and the pay-off on that investment will be 10 fold whatever you put in. As I reflect on the people I’m most loyal to, the people I would give the most effort, love, time, and resources, they are all the people who invested in me when things were tough.

The challenge: Times are tough. Are you investing in the relationships with the people around you?

In case you’re looking for some inspiration or a nudge, here are some thoughts about how you can invest in relationships right now

Don’t underestimate the power of a quick text. Whether it’s a meme, a gif, a bitmoji, an emoji, a joke, or a quick word it can be incredibly powerful. Not all investments have to be huge lump sums. Often the best investments are ones where we keep adding to the account over time.
Write an email/letter of gratitude and appreciation for someone. It will be the best 5 minutes to spend all day.
Share how you’re feeling with someone else. Sometimes the best investment is vulnerability, and admitting that things are quite perfect. It’s amazing how that can help bring you and someone else closer together.
My team is currently in an awesome groove with virtual happy hours. I think the secret is having a little structure. My teammate leads them and they each have a theme and a question of the day for us to answer. I never thought this would be my jam, but they are the highlight of my week and something I hope we continue even after we go back to the workplace.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry