Life with a 14 Year Old (16)

Our incredibly exciting week of welcoming our first grandchild has begun to wind down as our oldest and her new daughter are now at home and the newest member of our family is hungry every hour and a half.  We’re getting back to normal at our house too as we got the yard mowed, Denise made a dinner at home, and our 14 year old had a sleep over (at our house) with a friend.

Today is Saturday, and unfortunately it started out like any other weekday with my alarm going off at 5:40 am – I forgot to turn it off with all the excitement this week!  I took advantage of an early wake up call to let the dog out and turn the sprinklers on – and then crashed for another hour or so.

When I finally got up for good this morning, we opened up the house and a spectacularly cool breeze began flowing through our main floor.  The sun is still very hot, but that cool breeze is countering the heat and making this an incredible morning and a very comfortable day.

As the coffee finished and I sat down at my desk for some time of reflection and prayer, my phone rang.  My oldest had already called her mother as they are in route to the hospital for a follow up check on Audrey.  I expected it to be my oldest, but was surprised to answer and see it was my 14 year old.

“Dad, will you take us out to breakfast?”

“No, I’ll make you something here.  What do you want?”

“Dad, remember I told you last week that I wanted to go out to breakfast this weekend?”

“Fine.  Let me talk to your mother.  But where are you?”

“I’m up in my room.  So call me back!”

What kind of family are we?  I must admit that our house is larger than we need, but not so large that my 14 year old should be calling me from her cell phone to ask a question just so she doesn’t have to get out of bed and walk down the stairs.

As I always do (at least that’s my story), I wandered into the kitchen to discuss this with my wife.

“Megan wants to go out for breakfast.”

“Where is she.  She didn’t come down.”

“She called and asked.”

Denise chuckled and said, “At least we got one good cup of coffee.”

I went back to my office and called my 14 year old, “OK, we’re going out for breakfast.”

“Yeah!” 

So now, on such a beautiful day with such a wonderful cool breeze blowing through the house, I’m rushing through my morning routine so my wife and I can take these two 14 year olds out to breakfast.

I’m trying so hard not to be a “crotchety old man” [see prior post titled “Getting Old”], but every now and then I desperately desire routine and also desperately desire the still calmness of such a beautiful morning.

But how in the world can you refuse a 14 year old with a friend who calls on her cell phone from her room before they get out of bed and begs to be taken out for breakfast?

I certainly can’t!

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Team

As I remain so incredibly awed by the miracle of birth and the beauty of both my daughter and her new daughter, I wanted to pause for just a minute to talk about “team” because we’ve seen so many great examples of teamwork over the course of these Olympics and we see so many cases of great teamwork in our every day lives.  Behind each victory, behind each impressive competition, behind each amazing run at some world record, there is a team.

We saw such an impressive example of that last night with Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, who faced the best in the world during this Olympics competition, and each team facing them went down to defeat because of the incredible play and more importantly the phenomenal teamwork of May-Treanor and Walsh.  After the victory and the very emotional celebration (including the spreading of Misty’s Mom’s ashes over the sands of the court), Misty and Kerri came together for a quick interview and talked not about them and their dominating performance but about their coach and the game plan and their love for each other and their passionate team work.  During the match, NBC Sports had commented that two years ago this team that is so gifted and so unselfish in their play almost split up, thinking that they may need others as partners to achieve the ultimate results.  But fortunately for all of us who love to watch them play, they talked through their frustrations, committed to each other, and have once again awed the world with their tremendous play.

But beach volleyball was only one such impressive example of team.  Michael Phelps praised his Mom and his coach.  He also praised his swimming teammates, and if not for the heroic efforts of Jason Lezak in one specific race, the 8 gold medals would still be a dream and Michael Phelps would still be the guy that could not beat the Mark Spitz record.  Michael admitted that this was not an individual accomplishment – it was a lot of hard work and sacrifice from so many in support of that common 8 gold medal objective – a team effort.

Although I’ve been obsessed with the Olympics, it’s not lost on me that this birth in our family and this new miracle of life was also such a tremendous example of teamwork.  Mark and Melissa were so strong together for lots of years prior to marriage and have been now for the just over a year since marriage, and their teamwork has shined so dramatically leading up to this birth as Melissa finished school and prepared the home for family expansion and Mark finished school and entered the workforce in a dramatic way in a remote location. The beautiful result of their great teamwork is Audrey Sue, and she’ll sense and respond well to the teamwork of her parents throughout her life!

As I think through what I’ve witnessed over the last few weeks, I offer these thoughts:

(1) A good friend and business CEO tells me constantly, “You don’t lead alone”.  In fact, I have a coffee cup that I use here at my home office that he gave me with that quote on it.  I’d like to modify that here though and say, “You don’t win alone”.  In pure competition, it’s the hard work, sacrifice and incredible focus of a team of people that lead to the win.  Obviously, natural talent makes a world of difference, but rarely leads to victory by itself.

(2) In victory, the advantage of  team shines so brightly; but in conflict and in defeat, the real measure of team comes forth.  With every team that wins, countless teams lose.  Many of those losing teams have sacrificed and focused equally as much and have performed near flawlessly in competition – and yet they lose.  Great teams win and lose as teams.  Poor teams tear themselves apart in losses.  I’m becoming most impressed with teams that shine so brightly in loss – that’s the real measure of a team.

(3) Good people on good teams realize when changes need to be made to become a great team.  Great people on good teams realize when changes need to be made to allow them to perform at their absolute best.  Great people on great teams realize how beautiful the entirety of that team is, and they want to keep that going as long as possible and yearn to repeat that feeling once again if for any reason it’s gone away.  Misty and Kerry were great players but only a good team till they made changes – now they are an awesome team.  The US Soccer team was a good team with great players till they made changes – now they are an awesome team.  Michael Phelps was a great swimmer with a good team till he made changes – now he’s a great swimmer with the most impressive record in Olympics history because of the changes he made.  Part of being great is being willing to change.

Life is such an incredible journey and it’s so much more special when that journey is shared with teammates you love and so greatly respect, laugh with and cry with, win and lose with.  I have been blessed with such great teammates throughout my life in both business and at home, and I will continue to cherish that great team with great people that achieves great things against all odds and makes life’s journey so spectacularly fun, win or lose!

PS. I can’t help but once again show you a picture of our newest teammate!

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The Beauty of Life

Audrey Sue made a grand entrance into our family at 12:26 am yesterday morning, weighing 10 pounds and 6 ounces and stretching 22.5 inches in length!  She’s a beauty, but I’m not sure I could have expected anything else from her mother, our daughter, and soon to be perfect mentor for Audrey.  Although this is really about Audrey and the incredible miracle of life, I want to spend just a few minutes talking about the one that brought her into this world and the incredible daughter and now mother that she is.

Melissa made her grand entrance back in 1985, and we realized from the beginning that we were blessed with a wonderful child and a beautiful person:

I remember being afraid to hold her when she was little because I was so worried about dropping her…she appeared so fragile.  In fact, sometime early in her life, I remember tossing her into the air and catching her in the basement of our house and at one point she hit the ceiling as I forgot how low the ceiling was and reminded myself of how fragile she could be!

That young, fragile girl quickly grew up into a athletic and ambitious child:

In her grade school years, Melissa gave us lots to cheer about and some things to worry about, but it was hard to argue about her hard work, her maturity for her age, and her love for family and friends.  She made us proud in school and in sports, and she always seemed to be a champion for kids that were younger and smaller than she was.  She made friends quickly which was important as we moved around with the military, and she fit in so easily into new communities and new schools wherever we lived.

As she moved into her high school years, we finally stabilized in Colorado Springs, and she entered high school with passion and pursuit, having college and medicine (in some fashion) on her mind:

In high school, she played sports, wrecked cars, began dating, established lasting friendships and decided her path would be nursing.  She picked nursing after a special summer program at Cal Berkley which totally turned her off to studying to be a doctor.  During high school, she also battled her Mom on so many things, and I remember saying constantly, “you may be fighting now, but you’ll be best friends for life.”  Her confidence and conviction led to a level of maturity that most young people don’t achieve, and it gave me an incredible optimism that her stubborness which accompanied those traits would pay off well as she entered adult life.

She graduated from high school in 2003, a beautiful young woman in pursuit of her own dreams:

Melissa excelled in college and seemed to really enjoy being on her own, but midway through her college years, she met up with this guy that seemed to be very different than others she had dated previously.  He had his act together, which may be the most important thing that a parent looks for in a person that their child may date!  As the bond between Melissa and Mark tightened, talk turned to marriage and ultimately turned to timing.  Melissa’s very wise parents highly recommended that they wait till college was over so that they didn’t put undue burden on their relationship trying to finish college while paying their bills.  As we all know, love trumps logic, so they committed themselves to a life with each other in July of 2007:

As we all know, laughing in the limo leads to joy in other aspects of life, and that joy in the other aspects of life led to 9 months of eager anticipation:

As we moved through those 9 months of eager anticipation, we proudly witnessed the graduation of both Mark and Melissa as Mark finished his finance degree and Melissa graduated from the school of nursing.  We were very proud to see her walk across that stage, even with that 9 months of eager anticipation so obviously showing out her front:

Her graduation was less than 3 months ago, and as both Melissa and Mark put this phase of education behind them, they prepared for the first phase of education in parenting which now begins with the arrival of Audrey Sue yesterday:

So that beautiful baby that burst onto the scene in 1985 has come full circle delivering her own beautiful baby just yesterday.  It’s impossible to describe the thoughts I’m having as I think back to her early days and now think forward to her life as a mother.  As I look at my wife, I can only hope that Melissa has the relationship with Audrey that Denise and Melissa have today.  All the tension that they shared during those years of maturing have turned into friendship and respect now that they are both adults.  As I look at Melissa, I hope she will be patient and loving of Audrey as she grows and plots her own path in life, and I hope Audrey gives her as many smiles and as much love as we have received from Melissa.  I also hope that Melissa and Mark will let us spoil Audrey with no constraints and then not blame us as Audrey leverages that spoiling to her advantage!

As I bring this to a close and struggle for something profound to say, all I can say is this – for Melissa – thank you for the beauty you have brought to this world both in your life and in the new life of your daughter.  I pray that all the joy that you have brought to me and your Mom will be returned to you through Audrey, and I pray that Audrey will model you as she grows and thus also become a beautiful, confident, loving, and passionate young woman.  I love you sweetie!

PS.  I started this blog wanting to talk about Audrey, but I’ll do that later.  Suffice it to say that beauty begets beauty and Audrey has a great start in life because of the beautiful parents that she has.  As I see the smiles on the faces of her parents, I know those smiles come from deeply rooted love that will provide a foundation for nurturing and support as Audrey grows.  In turn, I know Audrey will love her parents and respect them for the beautiful people they are.  Welcome to our family Audrey!  We love you!

Audrey Sue

August 19th, 2008

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Panic

With the labor going long, my wife is already planning ahead for her stay at the hospital with my daughter while I go home and take care of things at the house.  As she begins listing off the things I need to do, panic is setting in…that’s just not me…she’s the one that does these things at the house!

As we’re sitting in the lobby waiting patiently for the labor to intensify, Denise looked at me and said, “Megan will need a note to get out of school during the day for her ortho appointment.”  A look of sheer terror came over my face as I realized that (1) I never wrote a note before and (2) I really didn’t want to write a note this time either.  As Denise looked at me, she goes, “you do billion dollar deals in business and you can’t even write a note?”  She said she’d tell me what to write and I said that I had paper with me so she wrote the note…the pressure was off…I began to relax again.

I’ve had one child through college, one still in college, and one entering high school, and I’ve never had to write a note to the teacher.  I wonder if that makes me less of a person or just makes me typical of most on the road parents who count on someone else to take care of the business of the family.  Regardless, I’m grateful for all the things I’ve never had to worry about, and as I found out tonight, I panic when I have to worry about them!

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Patience

I’m sitting in the hospital waiting room right now while my oldest is in the birthing center soon to welcome our first granddaughter.  It’s been just over 14 years since the last time I waited in a birthing center, and the hour and half it took for my 14 year old to enter this world at that time isn’t quite comparable to the over 10 hours thus far for our soon-to-announce-herself granddaughter!  And judging by the contractions and the resistance, it may be quite a while for this celebration to begin.

I poke fun at my 14 year old by accusing her of spending too little time in the birth canal and thus not having a significant enough amount of pressure on her head for a significant enough amount of time to shape her personality properly – thus her annoyingly bouncy behavior!  My daughter’s soon to arrive child appears to be just the opposite – instead of being anxious and diving through the canal in no time flat, she’s grabbing on to the ribs or anything else she can latch on to and wanting to stay comfortably cushioned inside her mother!  I get the sense that my daughter and the staff here are now anxious to encourage the grand entrance, so I’m sure that my granddaughter will soon sense that it may be more comfortable outside than inside and thus begin that red carpet march to her grand arrival!

I look forward to bragging as any grandfather would in the very near future! 

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Anxiety

This has been one incredible week for my wife – my 14 year old started high school and now my 23 year old has entered the hospital this evening and will be induced tomorrow bringing into this world our first grandchild.  I spent the week on the road, so I was immune to the anxiety and the tears of the events, but now that I’m home, I get to experience the stress right along with my wife.  However, we’ll handle the waiting very differently!

She’s already telling me how she’s going to wait out the arrival tomorrow in the hospital waiting room.  That would drive me nuts, so I’ll be at work, meeting with customers and team members all the way up till the time that she tells me to get my butt to the hospital.  Then I’ll haul my butt down there and experience the joy of our newest family member without having to go through the anxiousness of the waiting process.

I look forward to posting a picture very soon of the newest life in this world!  I’m very anxious to start the spoiling process, and also very excited to watch my daughter and her husband be the great parents that I know they are going to be!

PS. My 14 year old did indeed start high school, and her favorite class is teacher’s assistant in the elementary school, and she’s working on her certification for CPR to be a great baby sitter.  She’s probably equally excited as we are!

 

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Drama

I have been totally obsessed with the Olympics this week.  I spend my evenings in front of a big screen somewhere watching the competition, and I find myself lingering in front of any TV that’s tuned to the Olympics during the day as well.  The drama and the “rest of the story” coming out of these games is so compelling, and I can’t remember any previous Olympics – except maybe during the cold war and 1980 with hockey – where I was so captivated by the individual and the team competitions.

Michael Phelps is a story above all stories, but overall, he’s just part of the story.  The two American gymnasts that won gold and silver in the individual competition and were coached by a former Soviet gold medalist and Chinese gymnastics team member, respectively, is just amazing to me.  The men’s gymnastics team who lost their top two leaders and yet still performed so dramatically was so awesome to watch.  The men’s volleyball team who suffered through the tragedy of their coach losing his father-in-law in a first day murder in China was touching, moving, and so inpsiring all at the same time.  A 41 year old swimmer as the number 1 seed in the 50 meter freestyle competition is a story beyond belief, with the number 2 seed 25 years her junior.  And to watch last night as that 41 year old swimmer held up the competition so a swimmer in lane 8 could quickly change suits because of a tear was as good a demonstration of sportsmanship as I’ve seen in Olympics competition.

The drama of these games and the stories of the dedication and focus to get to these games has captured the imagination and viewership of the American public.  When Michael Phelps is swimming, anyone walking by the TV stops and stares, and then cheers.  Last night was even more amazing as he won by a fingernail, overcame a protest, and climbed up on that gold medal podium again.

In the last few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about drama because of one quote from a young man who was suffering from a constant string of losses in his personal life – his older brother, then his uncle, and at the time of his suffering, what he thought was the loss of his little brother as well.  He kept saying over and over again, “too much drama, too much drama, too much drama”, as he was trying to cope with so much tragedy in his own life and so little reason for hope.

Drama can be so extremely good and yet so extremely bad.  As I watch the Olympics, I see the “so extremely good” side of drama.  The winning for sure, but the competition overall and the dramatic work to overcome odds to get there even more so.  As I remember that young man, I see the “so extremely bad” side of drama.  I was reminded of the young man a month or so ago when a hero of the early war in Iraq decided to take his own life back here in the States.  I still remember the picture of the soldier with the black glasses walking away from the fighting and the danger with a young Iraqi child in his arms.  That picture became etched in the memories of many Americans, and yet that burden of the war tore this man apart and eventually led to him taking his own life.  Too much drama, certainly too much drama.

Life can be such an enormous roller coaster of emotion as we indeed live out drama in our own lives and in the lives of others.  I’m so thankful for the awesomely good drama of the Olympics because for just a moment any and all of us can be raised to a level of appreciation and joy that pulls us up and away from other not so awesomely good drama that may be occurring in our lives.  

I’m hoping others who have recently said “too much drama, too much drama” will also spend a few minutes at the perfect time and at the appropriate place watching the Olympics and for just that moment feel uplifted and revived.  And maybe just maybe in that moment of revival the “too much drama” will be in a good sense rather than a bad, and in that good, hope will return and that roller coaster of life will climb that hill towards joy and leave that valley of tragedy behind.

Too much drama.  Certainly, too much drama. 

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Insanity

I had a new experience today, one that I’m still pondering hours later – here’s the picture:

It’s still hard for me to believe, but I paid $2 to get a Diet Coke on my flight from Charlotte to New Orleans today.  If I had known there was a charge, I probably would have stayed asleep, but I was foolish enough to pop up right when they got to my row, quickly said “Diet Coke please” while trying to become semi-conscience after my usual take off snooze, and then fumbled around trying to find dollar bills in my pocket while the flight attendant stood there holding my drink and certainly not giving it to me till I popped out the cash.  I must admit though, that Diet Coke tasted mighty good for that $2.

I’m not sure the $2 bothers me nearly as much as the $1400+ that I had to pay for the airfare though.  I made the mistake of waiting till the last possible minute to buy my multi-city trip ticket for this week, not knowing my full itinerary till three days prior to the first leg of the trip.  My penalty for my lack of maturity in scheduling was a grossly overpriced ticket and thus unfavorable routing on an unfavorable airline and a $2 Diet Coke.

As a businessman, I’m fully aware of the crisis affecting our airlines primarily blamed on the price of fuel and also fully aware that if they don’t find ways to generate cash then several of them may this time truly go under.  By “truly go under”, I mean that they won’t go bankrupt eliminating a lot of debt and then come back and try again, but this time, they very well may have to truly fold.  As a 100,000+ mile per year flier who is dependent on the airlines to get me to where I have the face time I need to be relevant in leadership and relevant in revenue creation, I’m becoming increasingly skeptical and scrutinous of the costs passed on to the business travelers and the lack of any sign of reciprocal efficiencies appearing in the airline operations.  I fully understand that there are lots of things complicating efficiencies – labor agreements, current aircraft inventories, route structures, and even regulations – but if the most frequent travelers are going to have to feel the pain of the current economic environment, then it sure would be nice to see some form of innovative offerings in service that would show their patrons that they fully understand the pain being passed on.

IMHO, don’t pass on the costs by charging for everything – bag checks, drinks, pillows, blankets, pretzels, etc.  Instead, admit that ticket prices have to go up and charge legitimate costs for the flights.  Also, admit that the way airlines operate today has to change and take radical action to start making those changes.  In these times, I’ll more than willingly (ok…maybe not) pay more for the same or worse service if I see some plan to make things better long term.  But I don’t see that plan.  What I see is higher costs for almost comical service and “extras”, and then everything blamed on the rising cost of fuel. 

Unfortunately, I’ll just keep traveling and keep smiling, knowing that we won’t have sanity soon in this industry.  Who knows, maybe I can somehow dream up that unthought of miracle fix that all the airline leaders haven’t thought of and then save an incredibly important component of our economy. 

Since that’s not very likely, I’ll just savor every sip of this incredibly expensive can of Diet Coke.

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Late Nights

I’m becoming very fond of the all night fitness centers, and I almost enjoy going now late at night when no one else is in there.  I can turn up my I-Pod incredibly loud and listen to the music that really gets me motivated.

How’s this for my list of favorites in the workout room:

(1) Jimmy Buffet from his 4 CD set “Boats, Beaches, Bars and Ballads”, and I really enjoy the “Ballads”

(2) Barry Manilow “Live”, and most of the love songs I listened to during the courting, the engagement, the break up, the engagement again and ultimately the marriage to my beautiful wife

(3) A great Christian Music CD from Casting Crowns called “The Altar and the Door”, and a great work out song called “Slow Fade”

(4) Billy Joel “The Complete Hits Collection” with all of his speaking parts…he’s a great entertainer

In no way do I tear up the weight room, but I do enough weights to remind me of how old I am now.  I then get on the treadmill and burn 500 calories or so, just enough to work off that quad grande soy with whip caramel machiato that I had early in the day.

One of these days I’ll realize that I need to match some of this calorie burning with better eating and then maybe I’ll make headway on looking studley for my wife.  After all, she does look at that tear off hunk calendar every day and saves the ones that raise her eyebrows.  Don’t yet know what she does with those she saves, but maybe she’s telling me something by looking at it!

OK…maybe not!

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Life with a 14 Year Old (15)

It’s amazing what insights you get when you allow a guest blog!  Fortunately, I get the last word, so I want to correct the obvious inaccuracies in the posting by my 14 year old below:

(1) I don’t go to dictionary.com to look for big words, but I do go there to ensure I have accurately spelled most words over 5 letters or any that are not commonly used.  In fact, I have been known to shut books that I have bought if after a page or two there are more than just one or two words that I don’t recognize and certainly don’t know what they mean!

(2) Although in one sense I’m proud of the characterization of me as “hygiene man”, I think every parent will understand that if you don’t ask something constantly, the right behaviors typically won’t be instilled.  Although I’m hopeful that I get a “yes” every time I ask “have you brushed your teeth”, I can’t tell you how many times I get a “uhhhh” as any one of the kids would then turn around and head right back up those stairs to brush for the first time.  I prefer to call this “quality assurance” rather than “hygiene man”.

(3) I stand proudly by my discomfort with not taking a shower every morning.  I just can’t function without one, and I can’t see how others can pop out of bed and feel any sense of readiness for the day’s activities if a shower wasn’t the first stop (after brushing teeth of course) on the way to whatever is first on the daily agenda. 

(4) I plead “no contest” to whether I have rhythm or not (by the way, I had to look up how to spell rhythm).  Actually, I plead guilty, and I certainly did pass on that particular trait to my 14 year old daughter.  Fortunately, she’s so cute the rhythm won’t be what attracts the guys to her.

(5) I plead “not guilty” to being weird.  Of course, I’d need to see all the evidence against me before I’d formally put that plea in if this was a court of law.

(6) And I can’t possibly understand how she came to the conclusion that I share her prissy-ness.  She’s in a class of her own there!

I am thankful that I have descendants that are so openly honest and pointedly critical about my behaviors.  In a way, that makes me very proud of how they’ve been raised and how successful they will most likely be in their lives.

Fortunately though, I don’t have to include them in my will!

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