The way you do anything is the way you do everything.” ~Tom Waits
Unicornomics: The Foundational First 15%, 2019, p. 15
It’s 5:30 a.m. Central European Time when our plane touches the tarmac at Frankfurt International Airport in Germany. We push through customs, grab our baggage, retrieve our car, and make our way home to unpack all the baggage that comes with an extended, unfiltered, no-holds-barred, family vacation.
We pull into the drive way of what is now our new Mecca and download our luggage. I get after personal hygiene and change for work. I have to go to the office because our flight home shifted a day because of COVID requirements which adversely impacted our original itinerary. Oh, forgot to mention, I somehow managed to leave all of our passports and COVID vaccination cards at the airport, requiring another trip back to the airport.
All of this prelude is not meant to sue for pity from the audience, but to remind myself there will always be challenges to overcome. The time spent with family back in Chicago was priceless. Just being able to see my kids hug and speak with their cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents was worth every penny and frustration that came with the logistics required to put it all in place. It was like the Super Bowl of family vacations and I can’t wait to jump into 2022.
New Year, New You
“Realize, Visualize, and Actualize” ~Gary Burnison (https://www.kornferry.com/insights/special-edition/realize-visualize-actualize)
It’s that time of year when everyone is looking to reinvent themselves to become better than they were the year prior. Gym membership school enrollment, spiritual advisory, and life coaching services will be at the top of everyone’s Google search history. This, however, is not a bad thing. A lot of people will fizzle out and not meet their objectives and some will. The value is in the individual’s willingness to try.
“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” ~Michelangelo
Inspiration
I was fortunate enough to be present for my nephew, Alejandro’s, yellow-white belt exam in his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class. He asked me to help him study and we went through a series of sweeps, submissions, and guard passing techniques. I will not say he knocked it out of the park and is now ready for Mundials, but I will say he left every ounce of grit he had on the mat pushing through the exam to earn his belt. BJJ is a never ending process of learning, application, victory-defeat, and repeat. All I could do was smile and reassure him every time he looked back at me.
The one thing I explained to Alejandro after he tested was I would have been just as proud of him if he didn’t get his belt that day. The belt is only $14.99 on Amazon, he could buy it whenever he wants. What he cannot buy is the feeling of achievement he had that day, knowing he faced his fears, and put himself in a vulnerable position, outside of his comfort zone, to earn his promotion. Watching my 10-year-old nephew go through his experience was motivating.
Vision
I am not going to lie, I have been struggling to put my New Year’s Resolution on paper because I know what I have to do, and like my nephew it’s going to take me out of my comfort zone. I will continue to tighten the shot group on my existing mental, physical, and emotional self-development initiatives.
I hit a lot of my goals in 2021, got promoted to Lieutenant Colonel; competed in my first international BJJ tournament, got destroyed; and read more than a dozen books focused on life coaching and personal improvement. However, the biggest challenge for this next year is to be a more competent business partner for the family business, Class Capital Investing.
To actualize my vision, I will focus my goals setting strategy to achieve the following end state:
- I will complete the Zero to Freedom real estate investing course
- I will plan and lead development of a single family unit on our vacant lot in Crete, IL
- I will complete the Develop Good Habits “33 Best Books for Entrepreneurs to Read in 2022” reading list
- I will write and publish two research articles in military-centric professional journals
- I will maintain a healthy lifestyle and, per Jim Afremow’s “The Champion Mind”, I will refer to myself as an athlete and treat my development as a Jiujiteiro accordingly
- I will compete to win in three grappling tournaments by the end of the year
- I will be more patient with my children as their father and coach
- I will support my wife more by proactively forecasting friction points between our personal and professional schedules
- I will be more resilient incorporating meditation, affirmation, and reflection in my daily battle rhythm
- I will tithe more to military support networks to fight veteran suicide and mitigate suffering for disabled vets
Claudia has been killing it as a real estate professional and it’s time I learn the ins and outs to do my part. The best lesson I learned as a husband and father is that it takes both parents/spouses to make it work. My wife and I have had mutual interests since we met. We both continued our education beyond undergrad, we both served in the military, we both train Jiu-Jitsu, and we both have interest in building generational wealth for our family.
This year, I need to pick up the slack on my end. The family theme for 2022 is “Smarter, Stronger, Faster, and Kinder.” Having my own martial arts academy in the future with my Zen family is still in the works, but in the interim my resolution is focused on being the best partner I could be for my family. Best of luck to all of you out there on achieving your best this coming year. One team, one family! ~Doc