Month: September 2021

I listened to Jax’s “Like my father” this morning. It brought a tear to my eye.

The song (lyrics below) got me thinking about the many things I can do better as a father and husband. And it managed to do it while still making me feel good about myself.

The best kind of feedback. :-)

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I wanna come home to roses
And dirty little notes on Post-it’s
And when my hair starts turning grey
He’ll say I’m like a fine wine, better with age
I guess I learned it from my parents
That true love starts with friendship
A kiss on the forehead, a date night
Fake an apology after a fight

I need a man who’s patient and kind
Gets out of the car and holds the door
I wanna slow dance in the living room like
We’re eighteen at senior prom and grow
Old with someone who makes me feel young
I need a man who loves me like
My father loves my mom

I want a road trip in the summers
I wanna make fun of each other
I wanna rock out to Billy Joel
And flip our kids off when they call us old
He’ll accidentally burn our dinner
And let me be the scrabble winner
And when my body changes shapes
He’ll say, “Oh my God, you look hot today”

I need a man who’s patient and kind
Gets out of the car and holds the door
I wanna slow dance in the living room like
We’re eighteen at senior prom and grow
Old with someone who makes me feel young
I need a man who loves me like
My father loves my mom

And if he lives up to my father
Maybe he can teach our daughter
What it takes to love a queen
She should know she’s royalty

I need a man who’s patient and kind
Gets out of the car and holds the door
I wanna slow dance in the living room like
We’re eighteen at senior prom and grow
Old with someone who makes me feel young
I need a man who loves me like
My father loves my mom
I need a man who loves me like
My father loves my mom

In the years preceding my move to the San Francisco Bay Area, I never wrote a check. Time spent in places like Singapore and the UK drove home one point – checks were antiquated. We lived in the age of online transfers.

But, as I pulled open my check book recently, I realized that I’ve written many checks during my time here.

It is fascinating because it’s been more than 2 decades since online payment took its roots here. And, at this moment, many an entrepreneur in the area is focused on reinventing payments again with crypto.

And, yet, here I am writing checks.

The idea that “the future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed” rings so true.

Shrek:
Fiona? Are you all right?

Princess Fiona:
Yes. But, I don’t understand. I’m supposed to be beautiful.

Shrek:
But you are beautiful.

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This is a beautiful exchange at the end of the movie (Shrek) when Princess Fiona expects to be beautiful – a.k.a. human.

Shrek’s response is both simple and profound.

From time to time, it is worth taking stock of the relationships that matter in our lives.

While it makes sense to focus on the people that matters (family, friends, colleagues, etc.), one area that is worth examining in depth is our relationship with money.

Specifically, how do we feel about it? How are we doing with it? What would we want to do with more? Why?

A healthy relationship with money is as important as any.

The worst kind of delegators spend their time giving folks around them things they would not want to do.

Things get done when you ask people to do something you are (demonstrably) willing to do yourself.

Someone I know told his nephew in jest – “Don’t think. Thinking is dangerous. Just do.”

Of course, the nephew told his teacher this and our uncle was reminded to better moderate his advice.

As with all extreme advice, it isn’t universally applicable. But, the spirit of the idea is applicable in so many situations.

It is easy to get caught mulling if a choice is the right one. Outside of “type 1” /one-way door decisions that are existential and irreversible, it is often helpful to just make a decision and get on with it.

The cost of giving extra or “going the extra mile” in our careers for any period of time inevitably means being a below average partner/parent/friend/child/sibling for that period of time.

Nobody “has it all” or “does it all.” Not without a ton of help, support, patience, and understanding from people that matter in all those other areas of our life anyway.

We just make trade-offs. And they’re best made intentionally because we get to live with the consequences.

Win-win or no deal.

Sometimes, it is just that simple.

I used to have much better habits around disconnecting from work. Of late, I’ve slipped up on them.

It is one of those bad habits that has a collection of negative effects. I’m more effective when I switch on after having switched off. And, being on for long periods of time messes with my quality of engagement both at work and at home.

Time to re-learn how to do this.

Or perhaps learn how to do this. To learn and not to do is not to learn after all.

One of the fascinating things about the way our minds work is that we don’t appreciate progress in absolutes. We only appreciate progress relative to expectations.

It’s all relative.