Plain Vanilla - No Sprinkles

Plain Vanilla - No Sprinkles

In life, the idea of free will is an amazing gift and humanizes us.  We have to embrace that gift and live this singular and amazing gift of mortal life on earth to its fullest potential.  We have to constantly choose to "go big" instead of falling into the boring ruts of life.  We get to (and have to) live our best life...each day...we get to make that choice.  

Choose to go big.

From an adventure standpoint, (and any of the others probably), life exists on a continuum.  We've always found it helpful to define the ends of the continuum for ourselves, then put a "now" and "desired" dot on the line.  This helps us take meaningful action steps closer or further away from our stated desire.  For your adventure self (as a way of life/lifestyle) you probably have poles that are "plain vanilla" on one end and "sprinkles" near the other end. Indeed for some, there are further poles (couch potato (we literally ran a medical call when I was on the firetruck more regularly that could have been summed up as "too lazy to breath" if we diagnosed people on an ambulance) to the other end with lighting yourself on fire...on purpose (wingsuit flying, anyone?).  For us, with our age/stage of life we probably artificially cap it with vanilla on one end and sprinkles on the other one...you can put your flags in the sand where ever suits you and yours.  Figure out your "no-go" ideas or the "I Won't Do That" list and put those on each end of your continuum to cap it off.

Keep in mind, as you're setting those pin flags, getting them wrong gives you trouble with expectation management.  For example, if you're outer pin flag is in the frying-bacon-naked or overland-trip-to-circumnavigate-the-world because that's what you grew up with, but then you transition to spouse/parent/worker roles, and you "only" get to go raft the local whitewater, no longer the Grand Canyon, your present grand adventure pales in comparison.  This delta between your expectation (illusion) of grandeur and reality turns what is/should be an amazing weekend "staycation" trip into something lacking.  If instead, you put your pin flag somewhere more moderate/realistic to this stage of life, that very same trip is a remarkable adventure.  The point here is, the delta between expectation and reality is often blurry and largely artificial...so set yourself up for success.  

Embrace the sunsets in life.

As an example of expectation management, I recently got a text from someone close who was sharing an "old" picture of our family that we'd shared and mentioned what an inspiration we were as a family.  The "old" picture was seven months old on a Christmas road trip to the Gulf Coast.  We're somewhere soundly between spoiled and very blessed when it comes to travel and adventure.  We try to get out the door as often as possible within the boundaries of budget and work constraints.  As an example, we'll make an eight-hour-one-way trip on a three-day weekend to various regional sites around the mid-mountain west regions, often driving late after work on Thursday and returning late on Sunday just in time to catch a few winks and scoot in for Monday morning.  

Inject everyday adventure into family and life.

We have a person close in our circle who probably landed on their daily pattern and habits of life in the neck-deep-vanilla part of the pool.  They've got their routines down pat and come hell or high water, they don't want to budge.  They're likely way more organized, and their kitchen floor is probably more spot free...but their lack of sprinkles adds up.  For example, they had a festival my wife was going to meet them at and were told, "not no how, not no way" to paraphrase Willy Wonka...it was Tuesday afternoon...laundry day.  Our family was driving probably an hour and a half down for the afternoon...their family literally lives fifteen minutes from the festival.  Those little choices...vanilla over sprinkles...add up every day until pretty soon you become....vanilla, no sprinkles.  

"Get on your bikes 
and ride." 

Don't read "holier than thou" or let comparison be the thief of your joy.  The point here is you can scale your own life toward adventure by adding the sprinkles.  It means proactively, intentionally, and routinely choosing a walk down to the local greenway instead of sitting on the couch.  Choosing to go play a "ball game" with your kids in the park instead of watching one on TV.  Going to the local high school/college/minor league game/concert/theater down the road instead of watching it on the big screen in the basement.  (I'm realizing there's an anti-couch theme in this...while I hypocritically sit on the couch writing this).  Choose to go to the farmer's market or ethnic grocery store instead and try something new instead of sticking to the plain vanilla menu.  

Be thankful for 
sprinkles...or M&Ms

However, you define sprinkles (responsibly) and strive to live a life of adventure by putting varying doses of sprinkles into your everyday life.  By responsibly we mean within your means and commitments - blowing the budget, skipping out on the family for that big elk hunt, and seeking adrenaline rushes in unhealthy places/past times are not what we're talking about.  That said, as a family, make commitments to push the comfort zones to grow the size/magnitude of your available sprinkles.  For example, from a budget perspective, sit down with your family and make a shared decision/commitment to make sacrifices (e.g. cut the cable TV) and roll those savings into a vacation "sinking fund."  You get the idea here, look at your life and figure out how you can do it bigger/faster/better based on the values you and yours hold dear.  

I'm not sure Teddy Roosevelt in his Man In The Arena would appreciate the reference to sprinkles...but I think he'd agree with the sentiment.  His cold and timid souls in my mind are very much vanilla.  Don't be vanilla.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• What are three tangible, concrete action steps you can put on the calendar today to help add sprinkles to your life.  
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Do a micro-adventure in the coming month that feels like a staycation adventure.
• Schedule a macro adventure that takes you out of your comfort zone in the next six months.
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action)

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HWRGKfSq3A 

Learning from Others

Learning From Others

When we look at most things in life, we can learn from others.  In many cases, the biggest impediment to learning from others is our own egos and stubbornness.  Chances are, almost everyone you meet is smarter than you at something in life...and...with the right attitude, you can pick up some nuggets from them.  When you approach any new interaction with the mindset of "what can I learn from this exchange" along with "what can I contribute to this exchange" you likely open your brain more fully to be a good partner.  We've gotten in the habit of pushing our kids at museums, national parks, and such to "ask an expert" something.  This has encouraged them to build social skills, conversational skills, listening, talking to grown-ups, and other benefits...as well as picking up some cool trivia nuggets.  The old "it takes a village" is, in many ways, a testament to "learning from others" in our circles.  

Learning about Kivas at Mesa Verde.  You can
learn from those "now" or yesteryear others.

When we talk about learning from others, it's important to define and seek out the particular "others" you're after.  On a micro level of learning, you can probably learn from those immediately around you.  Whether it be those neighbors, peers, co-workers, or whoever else you "do life with," look for teaching and learning opportunities.  In a more macro sense, it is perhaps a better time than ever before to learn from those more globally.  Think about the various learning resources out there via technology - Coursera, Udemy, Youtube, Khan Academy, or so many other platforms, you can, with a little focused attention, learn just about anything about anything...which is incredible.  This doesn't mean mindlessly scrolly-consuming.  It does mean targeted learning and engagement to make you a better you.  Similarly, novel experiences "others" like those who work at various cultural, historical, museum, or other sites are wonderful "others" to learn from.  Don't forget...reading is a wonderful "learn from others" gift that is again, more accessible now than most any time in history.  

Expose your learning self and experience
a wide variety of learning opportunities.

While you're learning from others, it's important to have a mechanism to learn from yourself (and
others) in an organized fashion.  Within emergency services and the military, deliberate and proactive learning comes through a process called After Action Review-Improvement Plan (AAR-IP).  This process involves asking what was supposed to happen, what actually happened, any gaps/deltas, and a way forward to internalize the lessons.  When we take this same framework and bring it into our daily interactions we can avoid repeating the mistakes from one interaction to the next...which is huge.  You can apply this AAR-IP system to your love life, parenting, work, vacations, or anything else with an intentional and meaningful conversation.  Once this process is a bit habitualized, you'll likely start to see trends that might be useful.  

Speaking of learning from others, one key "other" is whoever we identify as a customer...not necessarily just who is "buying something from you" but the key stakeholders who rely on you in some way in your life.  To put this in perspective, listening to those around us - our pastor, the kids in our Sunday school class, the other little league parents, the folks down the wall of cubicles, or others in our periphery help refine and shape our interactions.  This isn't to say your learning from others turns you into a "yes-man/woman" but rather a more informed and in-tune human.  

Take time to learn from "others" in detailed 
ways and sometimes the 30,000 ft fly-by.

Along the way, we often think we need to commit to whatever we started on.  We often semi-permanently identify with "I'm a _____" as what I do for a living or what I studied back in the day...probably before we learned from a lot of others in life.  Chances are, as you go through life, you'll be exposed to many folks with varying backgrounds that may help shape your next steps and future journey.  In a class several years ago, the person described a company who started making "green circles."  The "others" they learned from were customers, counterparts, and others...over time, this translated into realizing the thing they should make was "blue squares."  They further evolved through learning to make "red triangles."  Now, they're famous for, and have a highly successful "red triangles" business but wouldn't have been able to see that path to success from the beginning...they only got there through learning from others.  

Opportunities to learn from others are 
all around us... every day...when we look.

As we wrap up, I wanted to leave us with a unique thought.  Over the years, I've had quite a few
opportunities to interview others for jobs or volunteer opportunities.  On one panel, the question was "think of something you assume we wouldn't know how to do, and briefly teach us how to do it."  The idea was to see how folks could "read a room," think on their feet, leverage their expertise, and convey information quickly and accurately.  Through the years, we've learned all sorts of stuff, perhaps my favorite was how to use a tuning fork to calibrate a cop car radar gun.  Hopefully, you can reflect on how often you truly "learn" something from someone else...go do that.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Pick out three "others" and commit to learning something important from them.  Target these interactions and go make them happen.  
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Take a minute to think about who the "others" circle is in your life - are they the people you want them to be?  Who do you aspire to be more like?  Or not...
• Have a family group challenge to see who learned the most interesting thing from an "other" and chat about it at the dinner table tomorrow night.  
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action)

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- Buddy Brown, The FedEx Guy that Changed the Way I Spend Time with People Forever - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLoOltwAsjo  

Deck Chairs on the Titanic

Deck Chairs on the Titanic

Too often we look at the problems we face as organizational problems.  We've talked about revolution vs evolution and how there is a time for both and you have to discern each.  With the analogy of the deck chairs on the Titanic, sometimes we're in the same conundrum of being busy for sake of being busy.  Or, in other words, "doing something pointless that is likely to be overtaken by larger events" according to disaster professional Juliette Kayyem.  In our own lives, do we double down on the mundane in the face of the storm?  Or, hopefully, do we take a minute to look at the overall situation and context before applying our resources (time, energy, effort, etc) as it applies to our schedule, to-do list, or more strategic plans?  

Novel experiences can help us figure out if
we're steering or deck-chairing.

Sometimes, it's important to take stock of what's going on and what you're going to do about it.  In the first responder world, we call this situational awareness and I've taken to adding the "Gain-tain SA" tagline to many pieces of training where we focus on gaining and maintaining awareness around us in a dynamic environment.  There was a great 90's movie called The Ghost and the Darkness about building a railroad across Africa starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer.  In the movie, the main problem was a couple of lions who kept eating the workers.  After an attempt to stop this goes sideways, Michael Douglas' character tells Val Kilmer, "You've been hit.  Now you just need to decide what to do about it?"  That's paraphrased but gives you a sense of how simple it truly can be.  In your own life, have you been hit?  Are you swamped by the circumstances around you and need to come up for air?  

...and sometimes you just have to  take off like
pirates, leaving mom behind.  

Hopefully, your life isn't compared to the Titanic but all of us likely have ups and downs that we must deal with in life.  Years ago, a friend and colleague, when asked to pick a song to describe our organization at the time chose The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  It made me smile at the time, but in hindsight, should we really have been working at a place where we viewed the "ship" as sinking?  Ultimately, with your life, it's important to really take stock periodically and figure out where your ship is going, both in terms of direction/destination as well as seaworthiness.  I know for me, I've had seasons where my seaworthiness has been worn down and I'm not at my best for anyone around me.  I also know I've had seasons where I've been sailing in the wrong direction entirely.  

Keeping hands and feet
inside the boat isn't always 
necessary if you're actively
moving the ship forward.

It's been said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results.  We can proactively get in front of these introspective looks at what we're doing and why we're doing it by taking advantage of temporal landmarks.  If you picture our calendar as a horizon in front of you, the mountain peaks may be those temporal landmarks - birthday, New Year, school restarting, etc.  Places that offer us a natural break in our routine to evaluate our choices for how we spend our time...these opportunities are gifts if we embrace them.  When we view these moments in time as opportunities to check our course, speed, direction, and "condition of the boat" we'll likely realize that some of our activities were simply rearranging the deck chairs.  

Work to get into the habit of utilizing these times to really evaluate our context and situation when we come up for air to evaluate our next steps.  If you notice that you've got things taking up your valuable resources - time, energy, focus, finances, and so forth that aren't moving you closer to where you want to be - prune them off.  You can double down on the meaningful items and re-invest those scarce resources into the right activities for you.  For example, if you've found yourself up to your eyeballs because you've just said "yes" to everything for a while, now is the time to gracefully extricate yourself from some of those things.  

If you're being drug along in a direction that isn't for you, switch ships.  For example, we've been on the fence about travel sports.  Our kids aren't going to play any major league ball - their genetics and our family focus are not aligning in that direction.  That said, we still want our kids able to "play a game of pickup ball" and maintain physically healthy lives.  To this end, chasing around travel sports, for us, became "deck chairs" and our speed has been more appropriately applied to the local YMCA sports camps and city rec leagues.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• List out a few of the activities that you feel are "deck chairs" in your life - whether this is home, family, work, or whatever else.  
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• For each "deck chair" you've been rearranging write down a path forward strategy - leave it behind, limit it, or double down in a more intentional/meaningful manner.
• Schedule a more strategic level family meeting in conjunction with a temporal landmark (your anniversary, perhaps) to get away for the weekend and plan for the season ahead.  
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action)

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- Deck Chairs Commentary - https://grammarist.com/usage/rearranging-deck-chairs-on-titanic/

- Deck Chairs Dictionary - https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/rearrange-the-deck-chairs-on-the-titanic 

Family HAZMAT - ALARA & Time/Distance/Shielding

Family HAZMAT - ALARA & Time/Distance/Shielding

In the first responder space, we're often confronted with a variety of hazardous situations that we have to interact with, sometimes at risk of great personal peril.  Hopefully, your home life isn't filled with physical risk...but we can use many of the same tools we use in the first responder space to protect the six inches between your ears (and those of your loved ones), along with your heart.  The tools we'll talk about help against physical risks but also the more metaphorical ones that might impact you like greed, envy, temptation, and such.  

ALARA - As Low As Reasonably Achievable.  We use this concept within HAZMAT to help us limit

Unless it's candy...that's as high
as reasonably possible.

our exposure to a toxic or hazardous environment/situation.  When we think about this principle and the parallels to family, we can use the knowledge base to expand our ability to best do life.  What should we keep "ALARA" within our family lives?  How about cell phone usage or constant screen time?  In our world, cell phones have been called a "necessity" or "necessary evil."  Does anyone remember the days not that long ago when cell phones didn't exist?  Does anyone remember the bag phone?  Now, they seem to be on all of our persons, and in many cases, all-consuming, should we look at keeping our cell phone use "as low as reasonably achievable?"  During our family time?    

Similarly, we can look at keeping our social media usage (ours and our loved ones) ALARA.  Video games?  Many other "bad/negative" things often, obviously fall into this category but it's the gray area of good/neutral/universal things that we have to keep an eye on.  We've talked about too much of a good thing, still being...well, too much, when we work through the list of activities that make up our lives, consider, carefully, what should be in our ALARA bucket of life.  

Another HAZMAT principle that you should consider that we employ when it comes to radiation or explosives (or, I suppose to a certain level, any other hazard) is time, distance, and shielding (TSD).  We can use this same system to help our families when it comes to things that we don't want to bring into our homes.  To a certain extent, the items we talked about above - cell phones, social media, and the like can benefit from this principle.  Additionally, the more ugly components of life can certainly benefit from this principle - drugs, alcohol, pornography, etc.  

Distance is good...even if
you've got a slingshot.

As we talk time-distance-shielding, essentially what we're trying to do is limit our time in the hazardous environment.  We're also trying to maintain as much distance as we can from the hazard and put "heavy" things in between us and the particular hazards.  Let's talk about pornography as a "hazard" for us and our children in today's world.  By limiting our "alone" time in dark places or when we're particularly vulnerable, we lessen our chances of falling into temptation.  Similarly, putting distance between ourselves and the places where temptation lives - physically, like the hotel, bedroom, computer, whatever.  Lastly, shielding could look like putting a picture of your loved ones on your home screen, open sharing on your devices with your loved ones, etc.  

Like HAZMAT, we can identify areas of our life (where or how we do life) that require extra attention.  In the emergency world, we draw concentric circles (...ish - they're usually funky shaped based on wind/terrain/etc) that we label hot/warm/cold zones.  The primary hazard(s) (the reason someone called 911) and the immediate area are the "hot zone."  The warm zone is the area where we may have decontamination and the cold zone is where we establish the control perimeter, set up the command post, and generally have "the rest of the world."  As it applies to family, understand when you're in the risky hot zone with whatever worries you and act with increased due diligence.  

In a personal example, part of why we shifted gears with our primary job was being away with big work travel.  Not only do we tend to drift apart when we're not with our loved ones, but we're also likely more prone to have other things fill that void.  This could be a variety of things...but likely most of them aren't good or desired end states.  On one end, it may just be diving into screens or snacks, on the other end, it may be diving into someone else's bed.  For us, the addictive nature of "being the best part of someone's worst day" as a professional disaster responder meant a lot of time living out of a suitcase...all those hours were hours not trying to be the best part of the only folks that matter.  By employing the ALARA and time-distance-shielding, we proactively created a life where we minimized our time away from home, limited the distance/time we traveled for work, and put up shields of expectation at the new job for travel.  This came at a cost, but we'd seen enough friends end up in bad places when they had one spouse "live from a suitcase."  

The point is, there are unique concepts that may connect with you on a personal level.  If it works for you to use ALARA or time-distance-shielding, use it.  If a part of it works, use that part.  If something else entirely works for you, use that.  When you're struggling with something, trying to prevent something, or just trying to live your best life, it's worth doing what you have to do to make it work.  We owe that to ourselves and our loved ones.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• What are three areas that you need to use ALARA or TSD for in your life to make it your best life? 
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• What are a couple things, specific actions you can take to limit your time with the hazards you've identified?  
• Who is going to be an accountability partner, your "battle buddy" to help ensure you're keeping yourself...and your family safe?
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action)

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- Ways to Achieve ALARA - https://blog.universalmedicalinc.com/7-alara-principles-for-reducing-radiation-exposure/

- Details on TSD - https://www.firerescue1.com/fire-products/hazmat-equipment/articles/time-distance-shielding-minimizing-radiation-exposure-yUjpcxrDyYFdibTa/

Sunshine, Unicorns, and Rainbows - Lessons in the Less Than Ideal

Sunshine, Unicorns, and Rainbows 

Lessons in the Less Than Ideal

Too often in our fast-paced, hyper-screen world, we see what "perfect" looks like surrounding us in our social media, Hollywood big screen, and everywhere else.  We get the airbrushed, "sunshine and rainbows" version that in many cases is not a version of reality that is accessible or realistic.  In the first responder world, we use "management by objective" as a principle, which harkens to the old Covey principle of "begin with the end in mind."  As we're working on our planning in disaster, too often we get those unicorn and rainbows expectations "put it back like it was yesterday and don't spend any money."  For a mayor, that'd be great...in our world, that's not realistic.  We start talking about the idea of a "new normal" and talk through the intentionality that goes with shaping that for the survivors.  

When we look at how this may apply to your family, there are times in life when it doesn't go exactly 

And, some days, everything is perfect. 
Embrace those days.

according to plan.  Sometimes, it doesn't go according to plan at all.  Other times there isn't even a plan.  It's important to take time with your life - proactive, intentional, scheduled, uninterrupted time - to go through and define those perfectly ideal "sunshine, unicorns, and rainbow" desired end states.  As you're defining that, hopefully by section of life, consider how the sections intersect to and either enhance or detract from the other sections.  Also, take a moment to list out a few details about the best case, worst case, and "okay/enough" case in each section.  For example, you might list a $1 zillion dollar bank account as a "Unicorn" level success in finance.  That's likely not a reality and likely would detract from having a family/spouse/kids/hobbies/etc.  

Perhaps, as we start tempering our expectations to align more accurately with reality, we start to see what compromises and opportunity costs (what you could do with the same amount of time/money/resource investment as compared to what you did do with it).  For our finance category, we may define "our less than ideal," but enough benchmark as having the resources to cover all "needed" expenses, some "want" level treats, invest for future retirement, and cover reasonable emergencies.  By working with a spreadsheet for a bit you can put dollar figures to those desired end states and come up with ways to achieve those targets...without compromising (in a major way) the other parts of your Ziglar Wheel of Life.  

Sometimes guardrails make a perfect
vantage point to see some amazing things.

When you go out of your way to define the guard rails, trigger points, or warning signs we can make meaningful changes when we get close to them instead of careening over the edge.  When we identify and monitor the various areas of our life we can help keep them balanced both seasonally and strategically.  In our home, we've had sprint seasons where we'll get an outsized part of our wheel that feels unsustainable.  At other times, we felt more strategically off-kilter.  Either way, it's important to figure out how to get back to our "true north" of "enough" within each sector of life.  When we're in balance, life goes along pretty swimmingly.  Staying in balance requires solid expectation management, shared communications, and coordinated end states as a family.  

In case you didn't know
the Leprechaun
apparently lives
in a storage unit.

Before we depart, it's important to touch base on one of the key components of the "perfect" vs reality discussion...expectation management.  Chances are, most of our disappointments lie in the gap between what we think should be reality and what it actually is.  In today's hyper-screen-filled world, our version of the "Jones Family Next Door" is now anyone in our social media sphere or on the big screen.  We're bombarded with folks who have fancier cars, clothes, toys, and houses than what we have.  With the availability of credit and debt in our modern society, many can live these lavish lifestyles without being able to truly afford them.  As the tycoon, Warren Buffett put it, "you only find out who is swimming naked when the tied goes out."  Many of those so-called peers that you're comparing yourself and your family to are the air-brushed version of a highlight reel and they are swimming naked and hoping the tied doesn't go out (job loss, cut back in hours, increase in the interest rate on a variable rate mortgage, etc) and it all comes crashing down.  

All of this to say, it'd be great (or maybe not...careful what you wish for since there is growth in adversity), if you and yours could sail through life and avoid the various speedbumps along the road.  In reality, you need to cast off the false expectations of having brand new cars, the Barbie doll/GI Joe figure, a McMansion home, and kids straight out of the designer store.  Level setting your expectations, defining the successful "enough" balance by category of your life, and living your best life in this less-than-ideal world is where you'll realize you're blessed beyond measure.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Make a list of three areas of your life that you're "frustrated" with and one 1% change for each.
• 1 - ___________________
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Sit down with your family and talk about things that you'd like to see...before you get to the revolution level of grouchiness.
• Practice due diligence on thinking through the actions to get to the desired end state...and the unintended consequences of making a revolution.  
  
• Now go practice the pressure relief valve/1% improvement changes that help you evolve along the way to live your best life.  
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action)

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- 212 Degree Motivational Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRDNLTMaZqo
- Evolution - https://changinghighered.com/evolution-vs-revolution-do-you-know-the-difference/