I had a Mustache. Here’s what I learned.

So yeah. I was bored. I had to do something. I had already organized the garage so the only other option was to start growing facial hair. I grew it out quietly.  Didn’t shave the beard for several weeks.  When I did, I trimmed it all but the upper lip and after about 9 weeks of this charade I unleashed the “Val Kilmer in Tombstone” look alike.  It was ridiculous, but it was new and different so I liked it.  Here’s what I learned during this journey of wearing a mustache.

1. We are all judgmental. Most of the times it’s subconscious and probably not on big issues. But at some level or another if were all honest with ourselves, will find that we are judgmental human beings. At one point I made the comment about myself.  I said, “If I saw myself sitting in a bar, I would never go and sit beside me”.  Ouch!  A friend questioned my comment and left me thinking how I was judging myself!  For over 8 weeks, numerous people both friends and strangers alike, made comments about my mustache. Most were cute, funny comments taken tongue-in-cheek.  A few were out right rude.  Either way, I learned we can all be judgmental (myself included).  If we’re judging on the trivial, I’m sure we judge on the important stuff.

2. We should let things be. When I was growing up one of my best friends on the planet liked Avril Lavigne. Some people railed him for this. His response was always clever and put people in their place. He simply said, I like what I like. He enjoyed what he liked and wasn’t concerned with other peoples’ perspectives or opinions.  My buddy was honest – and he liked what he liked.  Let people like what they like (even if it’s “bad music”, sports, or hipster suspenders).  Just for the record, I made fun of this same “Avril loving friend” for liking football because I was in a music snob phase.  Sorry bro!

3. We should have more fun. Although at times having a mustache was disgusting (food got caught in it, it would tickle my lower lip, etc), it was fun. It was fun to see people engage with me on a new level.  It was fun to see people engage in a positive and sometimes in a negative way. Either way it was fun.

I love watching my daughters play.  They make up super silly games and have a blast doing it.  Sometimes their actions are ridiculous.  But it’s always fun.

Go.  Have Fun.

I’m Deleting Facebook on My Phone: Here’s Why

When I need a hammer, I go to the garage and get it.  I use it then I put it back.  For driving a nail, it’s the perfect tool.  As awesome as this hammer is, I don’t carry it around with me all day.  I get it when I need it. Here’s my deal.  Facebook is a tool.  An inanimate object.  And it’s actually amazing.  Without it, I might not know that my buddy had a baby or that a somewhat close acquaintance had grass fed beef for lunch.  I’m not mad at Facebook.  Because I think it’s a great tool, I’m not deleting my account.  I’m simply going to delete it off my phone.

Here are my 3 simple reasons:

1.  Maximize Family Time: I keep hearing many wise people say, “The days are long, but the years are short.”  In this fast paced world, I don’t need another thing distracting me from fully engaging with my family.  Time flies and I want to max out each and every moment with the ladies in my home.

2.  Be More Effective:  Like all of us….I’m busy.  Like it or not, social media can be incredibly addicting.  Despite being busy, I can find myself picking up my phone to “check out what’s going on” several times an hour.  I want to reduce my mental “to do” list so I can be more effective with what needs to be done.

3.  Focus on Authentic Relationship:  By deleting Facebook on my phone I will be a little out of the loop.  I know this is an old school idea, but I’m interested in having actual conversations with my friends and family.  Yes, that’s right.  I’m going to have  to call or meet people.  Like – in person.  It’s crazy, I know.  Relationships are very important to me.  I miss the days of sitting for a couple hours over coffee or beer and catching up.  So, if I call you soon – know I really care!

I’ll be checking good ol’ FB from my computer a couple times a week.  And I’ll be posting from other apps.  If there’s something super important, or you just want to chat – give me a call and let’s get together!  Below are a couple videos that relate to FB’s good and bad presence in our world.  Enjoy.

STATS

LOOK UP.

Use Gmail as a Time Capsule

When each of my daughters were born, I set them up a Gmail account. My goal for this was to send them love notes and pictures of important memories that we experienced each year. I can’t wait for them to get older and to be able to give them this account!

It’s totally free and completely effortless to send these emails throughout the course of a year. Love language alert: For you guys out there that aren’t good with “words of affirmation” or “gift giving”, don’t forget to CC your wife. She’ll be stoked and again, it’s FREE! Gents, I call that a Win-win.

Time is so hard to capture! If you haven’t set one up yet, I strongly urge you to do so. You won’t regret it!

Inspired by TINY

I recently watched a documentary called “TINY”. It basically tracks this guy who decides to build a tiny house on a flatbed trailer. The movie tracks his ups and downs throughout the process. It’s also intercut with interviews with people who have elected to live in tiny houses as a philosophy lifestyle choice.

I am not planning on building a tiny house to live in (Although would be cool to have one as a weekend getaway). However, the concept of doing more with less was incredibly inspiring to me.

tiny-themovie.com

If you have a spare hour I would highly recommend watching this documentary. You can find it for free on Netflix. Hope you enjoy it.

Millennials: Amazing Opportunity Awaits

There’s such a divide between millennials who understand work ethic and who don’t. In this day and age (in American culture), I have come to this belief:

Any millennial with decent social skills, who can combine technical excellence with a strong driving work ethic will be highly successful.

Sometimes it’s scary to move forward. Sometimes scary to move at all. If you’re a young person coming into the workforce, learn to separate yourself from the pack. No matter what industry you’re in, make yourself indispensable.

If you or someone you know has great drive but doesn’t know what they want to do for a career check out this: http://www.mikeroweworks.com

It’s time to get to work and potentially find your passion in the process. Opportunity is everywhere. You just have to train your mind to see it.

Customer Care: Good Isn’t Good Enough

My entire working career has been spent in customer service. No matter your job, we all directly or indirectly work with customers and have to satisfy people.

Last week I was presented with an opportunity to go above and beyond to take care of a guest at work. She was not 100% satisfied with a service experience. To me, anything less than a great experience is unacceptable.

After discussing our options, we committed to a game plan. I stayed late, about 2 1/2 hours extra, making this service right for her. My extra time spent was nothing compared to the time investment she had made to give my team another chance to make her service right.

Will you make everyone happy every time? Absolutely not. However, the way you handle these moments will set you apart from everyone else in your field. In this day and age, good is not good enough. People will simply take their business elsewhere. Take your ego off the table and make others first. How do you create great experiences with people in your field? How can you make these experiences better?

My worst job ever

When I moved to Nashville, I had very little money. I needed to make money quickly. A special event organizer asked me to be a part of his team for local concerts, NFL games, and hockey games. The benefits of this job were: free admission to huge concerts and sporting events that were awesome. The bad news was I had to be the annoying guy asking for people to sign up for credit cards for a free T-shirt.

The last event I worked was at the Tennessee state fair. Crest was launching a new toothpaste and I had to work the promo booth. They put all the pretty girls in the front asking people to come up and brush their teeth. The sink was a designed siphon system that looked like a regular bathroom faucet. The system would bring clean water from a container and the other container collected the used toothpaste discard.

My job was to take the old, discarded, nasty, Tennessee state fair attendees spit water down two flights of stairs and dump it in the bathrooms. The ultimate goal was to make it down these flights of steps without sloshing spit water all over yourself. Sometimes it was unavoidable.

I learned three things about myself during this job.

1. When you give someone your commitment – your word, you finish your promise. Despite how disgusting this job was, I did not walk out. I finished my day and never signed up for another one.

2. I learned what my limits were. This helped me set up boundaries for the future for my life.

3. I learned that I’m no longer going to use Crest toothpaste if I can help it.

There are lesson to learn all around us. What was your worst job? What did you learn?

You Should Quit Your Job

Dave Ramsey always says, “There’s a great place to go when you’re broke…..to work”.  Couldn’t agree more.

I moved to Nashville with $400 cash. I had to find work ASAP.  I’ve never had a problem finding work.  For a while, I struggled finding a career – but there’s work everywhere.  I recently made a list of jobs I’ve had, and it was up to 19!  That’s right, 19 actual jobs.  Here’s what I learned from having so many jobs:

1.  The process of elimination:  Working gives you the opportunity to figure out what you want to do with your life. It also gives you an opportunity to figure out what you don’t want to do.  Either way, work is an opportunity to learn and grow.

2.  Vow not to hate your job:   I read a report once that stated 60% of working people hate their jobs!   At bare minimum – don’t HATE what you do.  Even if you don’t LOVE it….don’t HATE it.  Hating your job is not up to the position you hold but the attitude you have.  When I was 15 years old I decided I was not interested in working a job I hated.  Fact is, I’ve had plenty of jobs that were downright nasty (I’ll unveil that soon), but loving or hating your job is a choice.  You have to make a choice to not hate your work.  If you hate your job, you should quit (or change your attitude).

 

 

 

My Favorite Pic of My Daughter and Me

So instead of writing blogs, I’ve been collecting potential blog entry titles on my phone.  I have a TON – and I’m going to try and get to some of them over the coming year.  All that to say, it’s my first post in quite some time and I’m stoked to be telling you this story.  The story of “My Favorite Pic of My Daughter and Me”.

So, we just went on a Disney Cruise.  It was insanely great!  In fact, it was magical.  I have previously hated that word because I feel it’s over used and thus looses its meaning.  Let me tell you:  Disney creates magic.  They do.  They take a boat, it’s crew and their characters and produce a wonderland where kids are stoked and adults can be kids for moment.  It’s like that scene in The Sandlot where all the kids are enamored with the fireworks while playing baseball.  That’s the environment they create.  And it’s magical.

First, you don’t get service in the middle of the ocean (unless you pay ridiculous rates for a plan)  This helps you disconnect.  Needless to say, day one took a bit of adjusting  (the ship’s slight sway didn’t console me).  By the morning of day two, I was adjusted and ready to have a blast.  We hit the pool, ate food, saw the characters – all the typical things you would expect – and it was awesome.  But the moment I really “let go” was….PIRATE NIGHT.  I left the itinerary to my wife and didn’t realize there was a night dedicated to dressing like a pirate.  As my girls where gearing up, I decided I couldn’t sit on the sidelines.  I had to engage.  I found a striped shirt and tied it around my head.  Rolled my pants past my knees, put on my wife’s tank top, bought a hook, eyepatch and earring.  I was ready to walk the plank and it was awesome.  I finished by drawing a sweet pirate mustache on both of my girls for the full effect.  My oldest daughter then looked up at me and said, “Let me draw your mustache.”

Now, I didn’t shave for the previous 2 weeks.  Although I’m not a great candidate for the Duck Dynasty crew, I clearly didn’t need a mustache made of crayola markers.  I politely told her, “I don’t need one”.  Her response was, “Pirates have mustaches”.  I replied, ” I have one….look”.  Her shoulders dropped and she said, “please let me draw one”.  OUCH.  What I really wanted to say was, “I’m a 34 year old, business professional who doesn’t want to walk around with marker on my face”.  I closed my eyes and made the decision to be present.  It was the best decision.

By letting go of my own expectations, I was able to connect with my daughter, my family and myself in deeper ways.  By letting this little creative girl make a mustache on my face, I was able to let go of EVERYTHING.   All that mattered in the moment was being present and being engaged.  As a result, I was able to share a moment with her that will forever remind me of two things:

1.  You’re not as bad ass as you think you are.

2.  Be all in and enjoy the moment.

From that moment on I was ALL IN.  We must enjoy these moments.  Time flies by.  Where’s your mustache?

Happy Anniversary

It’s been 9 years.  2 career moves. 2 amazing children.  2 businesses.  5 houses.  Tons of ups and downs.  All in 9 years.  What an awesome process of growth.  You’re good for me.  Stoked for 9 more years and more.

9 Years.  2 Hearts.  1 Beat.

Happy Anniversary.

MF

enjoy a few pics of our family (past and present).

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