Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!

Apologies I may have exceeded my expected word limit this week.

Continuing thoughts on “Who am I?” from last week, both heredity and environment point a great big, fat finger to my dad, Ken.

He was who most would call the hardest working man they knew. It’s cliche’ but no truer words about dad were ever spoken. It’s all he knew.

Shaped by the military, he wore a buzz cut his whole adult life. His uniform was a dark blue Dickies work shirt and matching work trousers, a truckers cap and Red Wing Wellington boots. Usually clean shaven but some winters he’d grow a distinctive, red beard that eventually gave way to the gray.

A college dropout, not because he wasn’t smart, but because he was distracted by the obligations of a young family and new business problems combined with the associated, inherent rewards of fixing things and getting the job done well. It defined him. Innovation was core to his (unwritten) business plan as a general contractor who was reliable, unconventional, and irreverent.

In my formative years, he taught me how to work hard, never give up, tell it like it is, always do the right thing-no matter the consequence …, run toward the light, even if it might be a freight train, take care of those you love the best way you know how, and to be a good human.

I was influenced as much by what he didn’t or couldn’t do as I was by what he taught me.

•I finished engineering school because Dad didn’t and I elected the electrical discipline, in part, because it was thought to be a more difficult curriculum than mechanical, the discipline Ken started in.

•I manage my thoughts, emotions and money, not perfectly, but I witnessed the consequences when those things go unmanaged.

•I raised my children to leave the nest and build their own success instead of expecting them to carry the yoke of a family business.

•I rely on contracts over word-of-mouth because miscommunication happens, memories are short & selective and people will take advantage when it appears they can.

•I thank God for my blessings daily and work extremely hard to stay positive in the face of adversity. (Anne keeps me honest on this.) Dad was prone to find fault and complain about it to whoever would listen and that disposition ultimately destroyed his dreams and tainted his legacy.

So, who am I?

I am the son of a good, well-intended, hard-working man who did his best with the hand he was dealt.

I am a child of the King who provides me all I need and loves me unconditionally.

I am also

*Husband to the love of my life, Anne

*Father to three incredible children, Aarika, Jeffrey and Zachary

*Grandfather to two (soon to be three) perfect grandchildren, Dylan and Logan

*Son to a strong, resilient, God-fearing mother, Clarice

*Brother to three tolerant siblings, Dan, Kris and Joyce

*A student of the full serenity prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr

and

*The captain of my soul as articulated in the poem “Invictus” by William Earnest Henley

Have a blessed weekend!

Eric

Good morning, Team! It’s Thursday! (I’m off tomorrow)

Last weekend I heard Jon Weece speak. He first posed the question we all get around to asking, “Who am I?” and then to help dig out the answer, he asked “What’s in you?”

He said

•Ludwig Von Beethoven had the fifth symphony in him

•Leonardo da Vinci had the Mona Lisa in him

…and he quipped that Colonel Sanders had the Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe in him

So what’s in you?

Is your masterpiece being an excellent parent?

Are you a famous artist, composer, or author?

What still needs to come out of you?

Prepare yourself that the answer might very well be love, manifested in ways you aren’t thinking about right now.

I had never heard of Jon Weece before last Sunday. When he finished, I turned to Anne and said, “I like this guy!” I mean, how many times do you remember laughing out loud (several times during one sermon) in church? It was a good day. So I Googled him later as I tried to recall more of what he shared. I found another message and picked up another nugget of what is in Mr Weece.

He took a new $20 bill and asked, “Who wants this crisp, clean bill?” Most hands went up. He then crumpled it, threatened to dip in water or drag it in the mud and asked, “Who wants it now?” Most hands still went up. We know the simple truth, as demonstrated by his well-crafted exercise that,

“Our condition does not determine our value.”

So once again I ask you, as I look in the mirror myself, what’s in you? (regardless of your condition)

I have some miles on me, figuratively and literally. Some mornings it takes me 10 minutes for my right eye to see clearly, I have to stretch my back to walk upright and it may take a little time to realize … how incredibly blessed I am, but before long I’m firing on all cylinders and the momentum is incredibly strong.

I still have a ton to give; Love, Devotion, Gratitude.

•I have an experienced Leader in me who has weathered countless storms and Faith to walk blindly into the next one.

•I have Knowledge that this broken world is full of bad actors and that Forgiveness goes a long way.

•I have the Energy to keep gleaning points from triumph and tragedy and publish them weekly, somewhere, for someone’s benefit, for the last 14+ years, thanks to the inspiration of my former business partner, Tammy.

One more time,

What’s in you?

Have a blessed weekend!

Eric

Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!

Have you ever…

•kept track of how many drinks each person in your party pays for?

-at one sitting

-over a season

-during a friendship

•noticed how many times someone lies in a conversation (or a presidential debate…)?

•scoring while playing a game with friends or loved ones to see who bested whom, and how often?

•follow strokes on the golf course to compare against yourself (handicap) or against the other three players to see who owes whom what or who’s buying drinks at the end of the round?

Of course you have.

We all have an innate desire to keep things fair, equitable, even…and when it seems to tip so far out of control, we might say we’ll leave it to karma, relating to actions and consequences.

-Someone might be able to escape paying their fair share…until they lose friends over it. Who’s buying crying now?

-Lying to hide the truth or gaslight someone into believing they’ve broken some cardinal rule when it was actually the accuser holding the smoking gun…and the truth comes out like a jailed prisoner chirping to their cell mate. Some things only time and God can reconcile.

We all keep score.

Most of us have a conscience and are committed to doing the right thing, the right way.

If the only way you can win is to cheat, lie or make your own rules, you should probably find a game where you can win fair and square or just stop playing.

Have a blessed weekend!

Eric

Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!

Last stop on our journey to ultimate happiness as described by Dr. Amit Sood in his book Handbook for Happiness with a focus on cultivating emotional resilience.

The author poses three basic questions, and walk through the answers.

Q1: Who am I?

A1: An agent of service and love.

Q2: Why am I here?

A2: To make your part of the world happier and kinder.

Q3: What is this world?

A3: A giant school of learning

A few more salient points he makes in this chapter:

•Try not to value what you do only by how many dollars you make.

•Living an ethical, moral life is the greatest spiritual practice.

•Work as if everyone you are serving is your family.

Finally,

•The more you think of higher meaning, particularly in an adverse situation, the more productive and happier your life will be.

Let me boil this down.

-Shit is going to happen to you and you can learn from it by looking for meaning or be destined to repeat it until you do.

-Money alone doesn’t buy happiness and the love of money (aka greed) is considered to be the root of all evil.

-You have a job to do while you’re here to be an agent of service and love in order to make the world a kinder and happier place.

Happy begets happy so go spread some happiness today!

Have a blessed weekend!

Eric

Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!

Closing in on the last two topics of Cultivating Emotional Resilience, found in Dr. Sood’s book, Handbook for Happiness, today we’ll spend a few moments on forgiveness.

In understanding forgiveness, I never heard it described this way but,

“…our minds have no natural system for getting rid of waste.”

“Hurts pile up as open files and black holes.”

I am condemned. Closing files is not easy but critically necessary. I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night and my mind is in a black hole loop trying to resolve hurt feelings, working overtime to resolve those things that can only be solved through forgiveness, a voluntary choice.

“It means you choose to give up anger and resentment knowing and accepting that the misconduct happened.”

“Forgiveness isn’t:

•Forgetting the wrong

•Allowing a wrong to continue

•Excusing the wrong

•Denying the wrong

•Letting someone harm [you]”

I recently went through an exercise recommended in the book where you mentally put all of your hurts in a folder. Recognizing this much crap is too heavy and too toxic to handle, I forwarded the folder to my higher power and let God deal with it. I’m done.

I will have to repeat the exercise for old hurts and new ones but I’ll get better at it each time.

Isn’t it time to forward your files and detoxify? It is an amazing feeling when you get there.

Have a blessed weekend!

Eric

Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!

We are in week 3 of cultivating emotional resilience, from the text by Dr. Amit Sood, Handbook for Happiness.

A few salient points in the excerpts from this chapter,

Acceptance is:

•Finding contentment as you strive to progress (paradox)

•Dancing with life rather than feeling like you are being pushed around.

•Practicing acceptance requires both objectivity and willingness.

•Choosing to play the hand you have been dealt because the only other choice is not to play.

•Experiencing more, evaluating less.

I’m reminded of the serenity prayer,

by Reinhold Niebuhr:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”

This one is extremely hard for me. It feels a little like giving up. If we aspire to greatness, and if I suffer from perfectionist tendencies, the idea of acceptance feels like I’m lowering expectations. The only way for me to back down is to be conscious about giving myself grace. Perfection is the enemy of good and we live in a broken world. Just because we want everything to be perfect doesn’t mean that will ever happen.

If you are known as a control freak, accepting the fact that the one thing you can actually control is the way you react to the things that happen to you. As the quote goes recently shared with me, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.”

Have a blessed weekend!

Eric

Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!!

It’s summer, school is out, the weekend is almost here and I’m about to drop a few more digital breadcrumbs.

Continuing on with our Happiness formula, based on Dr Sood’s book “Handbook for Happiness” we explore the concept of …

•Compassion

A few excerpts

“The pursuit of compassion will make you happier than the pursuit of happiness will” hmmmm

“Compassion decreases suffering, helps those in need and also celebrates together. It is the practice of the golden rule.”

“Four steps to compassion are:

1. Recognize suffering

2. Validate suffering

3. Set intention

4. Decrease suffering”

“Formula:

Upset=hurt=call for help”

My view:

Compassion is often viewed as a sign of weakness, a soft spot or vulnerability. Most people are afraid to show that, for fear of being taken advantage of. In my experience, you have to be very strong, very secure and very stable to show compassion…and yes, the recipient might try to take advantage of your kindness. You can be both compassionate and wise, caring with boundaries. Like a lifeguard, you can save someone from drowning but there is a chance they’ll drag you down with them if you don’t have the right tools, apply the proper techniques and start the process by taking care of yourself first.

Have a blessed weekend!

Eric

Good Morning, Team! It’s Friday!

I mentioned last week that happiness is a goal (“I know I want to be happy”) but it’s more of a journey than a destination to be ready for at the end of your life. We all want absolution, too, but along the way, we strive to thrive not just put in our time.

I think that starts with gathering information and gets better when we process it and put the info to good use.

To that point,

Dr. Amit Sood of the Mayo Clinic wrote “Handbook for Happiness” and referred to something called cultivating emotional resilience. He makes it easy to digest with five steps, the first being…

Gratitude

Dr Sood describes it like this:

“Gratitude is being blessed and knowing you are blessed.”

Perspective is a huge part of this effort. Knowing you are blessed means you know how good you have it, and appreciating it. Things we take for granted that others don’t have?

•more than 1 Billion people don’t have safe drinking water

•more than 800 Million people don’t have enough food

•more than 100 Million people don’t have a place to live

“With true gratitude, you find reasons to be thankful instead of waiting for something extraordinary.”

“Use your hurts as lessons to help you grow.”

Finally, he writes, “Most transformations are seeded by adversity.”

I was labeled as “driven” by my Dad early in life. I was encouraged to increase the denominator of the fraction (want more). The simple truth we’ve all heard is that money (often tied to the “more”) can’t buy happiness. Success is a good thing but the love of money leads to misery.

My takeaway? To practice and increase gratitude, you should lower your expectations, be content with enough, look for opportunities to be grateful, starting with the small stuff. Food, water and shelter isn’t small stuff for a lot of people on the planet but if you’re reading this, you are incredibly blessed and probably not stressing about basic needs.

See if you can identify some other little blessings, remember them often and increase your gratitude.

Have a blessed weekend!

Eric

Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!

Reflecting after Memorial Day, when we take time to honor the men and women who fought for our freedoms we enjoy, what do we owe them besides taking a day per year to celebrate?

I believe we have been overwhelmed with blessings and easily lose sight of how good we have it … that we take far too many things for granted, not just our freedom. Like most things, we don’t appreciate it until we’ve lost it:

•Health

•Mobility

•Autonomy

•Security

•Love

We are bombarded with news 24/7 that tells us that this world is broken yet we enjoy an insulated existence to most of it and find a way to complain about the things that aren’t quite perfect…

I have been given another gift, albeit difficult at times to categorize it this way. My latest gift has allowed me time to reflect, build new and better habits, gain a higher appreciation for the things around me, a chance to slow down, if even for a little while, and to plan and execute a way to be my best self as I take on each day in front of me.

Here are the things I do differently today than I did even 6 months ago:

•Exercise-even when I don’t feel like it

•Show love-regularly so people know my heart and don’t have to interpret expressions on my face.

•Nap more-because I can and because I’m listening to my body when it doesn’t get the rest it needs.

•Get a regular massage-no matter how gratuitous this sounds, if I wear tension on my body, it shows up on my face and affects my disposition and how I show up.

•Pray (more regularly and more often during the day)-inner peace, a stronger faith and a better outlook are all benefits of prayer for me.

I don’t know how long I’ll live, how long I’ll work, how I’ll spend time five or ten years from now but I know I want to be happy, productive, loving, caring and leave things, people, and society better than I found them so I know I better show up with my best self every single day.

Have a blessed weekend!

Eric

Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!

I heard this term last weekend and it brought back memories. In 1997, the Red River Valley was flooded wreaking havoc on North Dakota and Minnesota. Present value of damage approaches $8 billion! Grand Forks, ND seemed to be the worst location impacted and I spent a lot of time there helping the University of North Dakota get their campus back on its feet. Since it was also the Army Corps of Engineers Operations Center, we also helped the city to get back on its feet.

Our family general contracting business used to own, operate and maintain carbureted, gas-powered cars, pick-ups, tractors, maintainers, loaders, crushers and trucks. When something went wrong with gas motors, often times the float would stick in the carburetor and the motor would get flooded with too much gas. Not the same impact as a river overflowing its banks but frustrating nonetheless. You start machinery to use it, not to work on it.

This specific flooded reference was regarding emotions. The biggest culprit cited as the cause of flooding emotions was social media. One comparison I heard was like a five year old jacked up on candy and you expect them to sit still after gobbling up pounds of sugar. 🤔

Are we much different? If we feast on social media content that stirs up an emotional frenzy, like

-she looks really good, I wish I looked like that

-they just took an extravagant trip, I always wanted to go there

-he just bought a fancy car, man I bet that’s fun to drive

…and then we go to a work meeting or we talk to our spouse or we try to communicate with a friend…with our brains flooded with emotion…how do you suppose that goes?

Are we showing up as our best selves?

Are we even being fully present?

Distractions are not only the enemy of production, they negatively impact the quality of our lives. Mix in an emotional ingredient and you have a recipe for constant disappointment.

Challenge: Evaluate how much time you spend on all the things today. Be honest, look specifically at your screen time (cell phone, computer and TV). Once you come up with an accurate number, make a goal to cut it in half (oh yes you can). Replace that time with uninterrupted connections with your loved ones, gather beauty, invest in your health, make a plan to unshackle yourself from the excessive garbage that’s stealing your real joy and filling your coffers with fools gold.

Have a blessed Memorial Day weekend!

Eric