Last week I celebrated my 50th. Birthdays have never been a huge event for me. Another day. Nice dinner, maybe a few presents from my family. Then it's over, no worries. I think there was some external factors with work, my physical state (lack of sleep), but the day was off and I didn't feel right. The morning started with our local Expanse face to face meetup with @Jared Johnson and @Chance Lundgren . Good discussions as always. Afterwards I hung back with Jared. We talked a bit. I decided I needed a massage to try to unwind and he called around and got one booked for me. That was amazing and thanks to Jared for making that happen. I went to lunch with my 2 brothers. Came home and pretty much just chilled with my family . I wasn't feeling great so we ended up not going out, just watching some movies with my wife and kids. My wife had asked that morning what I wanted to do for my bday and I just said "for noone to demand or need things from me" it was said with a little sarcasm, but was the honest truth. That was Friday. The weekend was pretty calm, just hanging out with the family. My mother-in-law came for a nice Easter dinner. Not even sure what I'm sharing here other than I wanted to acknowledge @Jared Johnson for pushing me to just go do what felt right in the moment. I don't really understand why the day felt so heavy (and still not sure). I think there's some frustration and anger around where I expected and thought life would look a lot different at 50 than it does. I am often torn between doing what I want vs what's expected. I know if I get really poor sleep it can send my emotions haywire, but is that just because I'm really tired? Or is it because if I'm not tired I can more effectively suppress those emotions? And yes, I'm open to anything anyone wants to throw at me 😁.

I thought I'd share a little bit about a few things that I realized this week. In our manOS call on Tuesday, we were discussing the topic of strategy, and @Corbin Sellers asked how we feel about strategy and what we do when things aren't really going our way. As I contemplated that, I thought, "Man, I love strategy, and I can sit there and contemplate and analyze and strategize all day long." With the other question of what do you do when it doesn't go right, I move right to action. I don't even worry about the strategy; I just get in and plow through things, whether it's the right way or not. I just get it done quick and dirty. In my discussion with @Jared Johnson and @Chance Lundgren , the three of us are meeting up and going through ManOS together, and we're at Awareness. The challenge when we last met was to post about a recent awareness. My awareness is this: as I contemplated my feeling towards strategy, I realized that my so-called "love of strategy" is really a safety mechanism to prevent risk and failure. If I am working on the strategy, let's say it's for my business and some new marketing offering, I can feel productive if I'm spending hours analyzing and strategizing that offering. It's probably more effective in the long run to just take action and pivot and fine-tune it as I go, but that's risky, and it's easier to feel productive and just stay stuck in planning. My Intention is that I need to be OK taking bigger risks and face potential failure so that I can have more rewards. Know when it's good enough Be more confident in my ability to pivot Understand the risk of inaction Do the hard thing

Video is a bit on the longer side, but it's basically my thoughts on how I navigated through it once I noticed it, and my "March 2023" story. https://www.loom.com/share/4557382b7eab49948b4ec15e6c58ef7e

I didn't... 😂 It didn't suck, but I survived and it's over. Sometimes it's nice to just be done with the day. Anyone need to vent? I'm the first to appreciate the value in a good venting, so if you needs one, DM me.

Thanks @Jared Fenn for sharing about your day yesterday. Let’s sound off about our week. Here’s the format: 1. One word to describe your week 2. One thing you’re grateful for 3. Any additional information & context you wish to share. Drop em in! I’ll start.