The Journey Begins

At the end of last month I “semi-retired”

I left consulting in the tech industry after nearly a decade of inspiring but stressful and demanding work.  As my success grew so did the stress and disruption, pulling me away from the equally important roles I am blessed to have as husband, father and participant, and sometimes leader, in faith-based organizations.

I’m stepping away to recalibrate and prioritize my life to honor all of the life-spheres I’m engaged in.

I need to find a balance that allows me to love others as myself.  The problem is I’m not sure what “as myself” really means.  For example, I’ve had a longtime passion around healthy living and wellness.  Many people ask me for advice on this topic and I love to talk about it.  In fact, there was a period of time that our family did a hobby farm raising and selling meat birds (chickens, turkeys) along with a full garden as a way to eat healthy – true farm to table from our own backyard.  One summer we raised over 1,000 birds. But I still had a hard time actually remaining in a physically healthy state. I gladly accepted new challenges at work but in hindsight never prioritized my own health or asked how I would manage the stress those new responsibilities would bring.

Despite my passion for healthy living I’m actually not physically fit and don’t eat all that healthy right now. Why the disconnect?  Well, I want to find out.  Step 1 was removing myself from an environment that wasn’t healthy for me.  It’s a great company and work environment, but it was no longer the right place for me.

Here’s the thing, I want to find out if we can actually be healthy.

Today marks the first day I’m fully stepping into this new phase of life and I’m not really sure what to expect.  It’s a Monday and I have no meetings, no requirements and no agenda other than to avoid stress, avoid over commitments and pursue health.  For a high performer like myself this is hard but it feels really good. 

What makes this day doable?  Having my wife’s full support – she regularly encourages me in this and tells me often that she’s excited for me to take this journey.  She, way before me, knew I needed to leave the consulting world and start something new.  I’m so grateful for her.

I have a ton of questions running through my head about being healthy, and maybe now I’ll have time to answer them.

• Amidst all the environmental stress we live in and the workplace and family stress we deal with, can our bodies continue to absorb this stress and find equilibrium?
• Does that equilibrium, which allows us to function and be ourselves, equal healthiness or is it a compromised state?
• If it’s compromised, what would a real state of healthiness mean for our performance and presence each day?
• If it’s not compromised, how do we find better balance so we can care for ourselves better so we avoid burn out and truly support and care for those in our life?
• What happens when our bodies tip over and can’t regain equilibrium?

At the start this blog is about 2 things:

1. Capturing my process for recalibrating my MO (modus operandi)
2. Searching out what prevents well intentioned people from being healthy and, hopefully, the answers they need to be healthy.

My goal is to blog/journal everyday for the next two weeks, possibly longer, primarily for myself to help me process this change and recalibrate how I operate.  If it can bless others than I’m glad you found this blog. 

If you have questions or comments about this journey, please let me know in the comments below. I look forward to hearing from you.

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2 sections I plan to include in every post for my own reflection and processing

Today, I spent time doing the following:

1. morning coffee with my wife before the kids woke up
2. breakfast with the family
3. morning meditation and reading
4. setup a new computer, organized my desk and office space
5. watched workout videos and did a few – focused on warm up routines and stretches to support the spine
6. lunch with the family
7. went to the gym, ran for 20 mins, rowing machine for 10 mins
8. dry sauna for 15 mins
9. blogged
10. dinner with fam and evening routine

What I liked about today:

• starting the day with my wife
• 3 meals with my family
• exercised
• avoided committing to anything new – I’m not ready to do this yet but I know the day will come and I look forward to being ready