The Fire Within

I have to start this by saying I'm not a Nick Saban fan. I think the Minnesota fan in me hates anyone who has continued long term success winning multiple championships because I just can't comprehend what it would be like. But this video made me really like the guy. Take two minutes and watch it. Nick Saban on Second Chances pic.twitter.com/O1bFjfISGx — Jaycob Ammerman (@Jammer2233) August 6, 2019 The interesting thing is this video is from 5 years ago, but the world we live in is still this way today, probably worse. As a society we like to skewer people when they make a mistake. We expect people that are in any sort of spotlight to perform flawlessly and never make a bad choice or say the wrong thing. Why? Every single one of us has made a mistake. Every one of us has put our foot in our mouth. Every one of us has hurt someone we care about. None of us are perfect but yet we love to expose people when they make a mistake. The more visible, the more famous, the more we lo...

The last couple of months has been an interesting set of events reminding me just how small the business world is, and the world in general is. The first time was when I was hired by my current employer because they knew about me from over seven years ago. Back then I was in charge of building a new Web site and was part of selecting them as our provider. I wouldn't be at the job I am without that relationship. The second one came about that a man I last worked with over 10 years ago saw that I got a new job on social media. It just so happens he was searching for a new partner to help his company build a new Web site and recognized a fit. We wouldn't be working on this project if it wasn't for that relationship. They always say you never want to burn bridges, which I can see. You never know where life and your career might take you 5, 10, or more years down the road. It also is a good reminder how important it is to invest in relationships as the return you get out of ...

Success can come in many different forms, which makes success hard to achieve. There isn't a magic set of steps if you follow them you will succeed. It is why people will often try to replicate the acts of those who are successful but find it a harder road than expected. Because there are so many paths to success teams can easily find themselves debating about what is the right path they should be on. Each person has different experiences, strengths and knowledge that make different methods more or less appealing. The larger the team the more opinions. The more opinions the more room for debate about which one is right. I believe success has far less to do with finding the right method and far more to do with everyone on the team buying into the selected method. If you can't support the decision then you are actually hurting your organizations chance of success. You are allowed to disagree and debate with others, but if a decision is made that you don't agree with you s...

Had to make a business trip recently and it didn't exactly go well. I was flying from Minneapolis to Chicago, which is one of the shortest flights ever so how could it be bad? By the time you've reached cruising altitude they have to start the decent. The problem was there was some weather in Chicago the morning of my trip that caused everything to back up. Plane was delayed arriving into Minneapolis, so it was late taking off, then it got worse. We landed in Chicago and things were so backed up that we sat on the tarmac for an hour and forty minutes waiting for a gate to become available. I can't really complain though, I've heard far worse stories of people being stuck on a plane in the past. Even on my flight there were people trying to get to a connecting flight but there were none for at least 2 days, I can't imagine what that would be like. It is so easy when in a that situation to complain, talk to anyone who will listen about how screwed up the airport i...

One thing that brings me great satisfaction in life is anything causing me to look at something differently. To shift my beliefs with new knowledge and evidence. This is why two of my favorite authors are Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin , they are both good at reframing a long held belief I thought I understood. It is why videos like the one below bring me such joy. It is a simple visual reminder of how what we think will be true isn't always true. Plus the nerd in me likes the physics of inertia, force and gravity too. In our life we will limit our abilities by the beliefs and thinking we hold for ourselves. We think that our truth is the correct truth. We need to continuously look at things differently and explore other ideas. Test, experiment, fail, learn, grow - things that are perfectly okay to do because guess what, life is going to give them all to you. What is one thing you need to shift your thinking on? A straight line may be the shortest route but it doe...

I just finished reading the book Finish by Jon Acuff. I've shared some posts and quotes from him before but this is the first book of his I've read. I think I may have had too high of expectations going in, I thought I was going to be crying laughing the whole time reading it, I didn't. When I got past my initial disappointment that my stomach didn't ache from laughing so hard I realized how impressive the insights in it were. The premise is simple, we all have goals we want to accomplish, but we create whatever excuses we need to keep us from achieving them. It is why most New Year's resolutions fail before January is over. We find when we miss a day going to the gym or slipping on our diet plan that we just through the whole thing out the window, missed a day so you might as well take the week off. If you want to actually achieve the goals you set for yourself, this book is full of practical advice and strategies on how to look at your goals. One of the best w...

Where is the shortcut? What is the path of least resistance? Can you show me the steps you did so I can copy them and not figure them out on my own? Can you just give me the answer? Life at times gives us hard problems. Be it work, school, relationships, or teams - each at times throws us something that can be frustrating. The answers aren't right in front of us. Google doesn't lead you to the page with the step-by-step instructions on how to solve it. What do you do now? Those hard problems are exactly what they need you to figure out. We need more people capable of taking a hard problem and finding a solution. It may mean banging your head against the wall until you find a break through, but it is a hard problem, it is okay that your head hurts a little coming out of it. If you want an easy answer that is easy to look up and repeat the same steps you are in for a world of hurt because the world is changing. Robotics and artificial intelligence is changing jobs rapidly....

Another day, another set of events happening in our country causing people to pick sides, pontificating their view and deriding any opposing opinion. We have become a society struggling with communication and debate. I recently listened to an episode of the #Solvable podcast with Juan Manuel Santos, former president of Colombia and Nobel Peace Laureate. He spoke of the mindset he used in helping to bring an end to his countries more than 50 year civil war. The key points I took away: You have to listen to what the other side is asking for. This is always where we fail, we stop listening because we try to prove why what they are asking for is wrong.  You have to be willing to compromise. If you expect the other side to just concede everything you will never end the battle. You have to find some common ground. It is there, you have to sometimes dig for it. In the Colombian civil war both sides wanted their children to have a chance at growing up in a world without fighting....

I recently watched the Ken Burns documentary about The Mayo Clinic  (also available on Netflix at the time of writing). Ken Burns does a great job telling the story of the Mayo brothers following in their fathers footsteps and growing The Mayo Clinic into the medical enterprise it is today. There were some interesting principles that apply to any area for people to learn from. While they were both world renowned surgeons they were focused on providing the best care for the patients that came to them. They sought out the best doctors in other specialties to join them and grow their practice. They believed in a team based approach, where it isn't about having one doctor have all of the answers, but about having a team that can come together to help a patient. After watching it I couldn't help but think about how broken our health care system is in our country. I'm not a health care expert, I'm barely a novice. I've just scratched the surface in my reading and compre...