Thought Residencies

I'm thinking about vaccinations and puppy cuddles; about strategic planning, and long-term organizational health; about volunteerism; about whether or not working from home is a gift or a curse; about family and travel and travel insurance; about contract negotiations and systemic bias; and really just hoping it all slows down in time for me to rest and try again tomorrow.

I'm currently participating in the Cultural Leadership Program at the Banff Centre, and we've been asked to 'test drive' an aspirational core value over the past couple of months. Something like… respect, honesty, beauty… a value we can use to guide our decision-making processes as leaders. I'm finding this a near impossible experience. I picked the value "truth", and right now, I think that my truth is that the idea of leadership distilled into homework assignments makes me suspicious, … so what can I learn about myself from this suspicion?

Happy New Year everyone! Um, today… on a day where it feels like everyone is thinking about bettering themselves… what habits to form or break, and which practices to begin… I think I'm joining the fray. It's not wholly formed yet, but I think it's somewhere in the realm of starting a mindfulness practice. To do less, but to try to enjoy what I'm doing more.

My spouse and I got a puppy in mid December, and she's teaching me … well, patience among many other things… but, but really more than anything else, she's reminding me of joy and the beauty of unconditional love. So to everyone out there, I wish you all a joyful new year, full of the things that matter to you. You are loved.

For this final thought, I'm writing it out first, so that I don't have to do several more takes at it. Someone I love very much is trying to sleep and it's 1:30 in the morning. I'd like to give her, Caitie, a shout-out for being great. It's been a long month, and year, but it's people like her who keep me going through it all. She reminds me to never take myself too seriously, and to find laugher and silliness whenever possible. I think it's appropriate to end with that.

Merry Christmas to everybody out there listening who celebrates that, and happy holidays to everyone, and Happy New Year to those whose New Year starts soon. Had a great conversation with my family about belief systems at the Christmas dinner tonight. And it was, it was nice to hear my aunts like really come together and listen to the different perspectives that people have now on the world. And I dunno it was it was cool to see them just be surprised that there is another way of thinking and that we feel comfortable exploring those ways of thinking.

Every Christmas Eve my mother, my sister and I play a card game called Wizard, the last thing we do before bed. And for the last, I dunno, five or so years my sister has won. And uhh before that I was the reigning champ for four years or so, and she won again tonight. So I just wanted to take the opportunity to give a shout-out to my little sister Cassandra, who is not little at all. She's much taller than I am. For winning again and putting up a good game.

So I've been doing a lot of these thoughts as one take, which is kind of fun. Sometimes I put songs behind them and I like that. So this is Janet Jackson right now. This year I decided I wanted to rent the Mini Cooper at some point just because I've always wanted to drive one and then I got a chance to. And uh it was great— cost me more money than to rent a regular car, but I needed to rent a car anyways and a Mini Cooper was available. I used an app called Turo. You should check it out if you haven't already. And Mini Coopers are great.

I've been doing a lot of reflecting on 2018 as the year comes to an end, and thinking forward to 2019. And I really liked the resolution they had for this year. And I don't feel like I've quite gotten there yet. So I feel like 2018 is more like a stepping stone to 2019. I'm not going to tell you what that thing is, uh because I don't have to, and I choose not to.

I was really excited this week when I found out that uhh Blue Planet 2 is on Netflix now. Um, and I wanted to watch it on Sunday morning and didn't get a chance to. And then Sunday night I went home and I kind of claimed that time and watched the first episode of Blue Planet 2… and it's great! It's beautiful…Definitely check it out.

On the second night back-to-back, on the road, without Kawhi Leonard, Toronto Raptors beat the Golden State Warriors 113- 93. They beat the Clippers last night. And, it's just great to see them really come into form, and play their game, and most importantly they're having fun. And something I've noticed the last couple nights is that the Raptors are having fun. And I think sometimes when things aren't going our way, or stressed, we forget to have fun and the Raptors are coming out of a slump by enjoying what they do. And that's important.