milestogofromhere.com | Jeff Miles's personal blog | Faith, Family, Fitness, and Fun

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  • Follow Friday – Mark Delaney

    Follow Friday – Mark Delaney

    There are times when someone walks through your front door and your life is never the same after that point. As much as Mark wants to say walking through our front door all of those years ago for a church small group set him on a course that would ultimately change him, I would have to say that change has been completely mutual. Anyone who knows Mark can tell you he’s not satisfied with not impacting you in a positive way. For this FollowFriday post I want to highlight a good friend of mine. I have gotten to watch Mark and his wife Adena affect so many people in a positive way that I would be stupid not to point people towards him.

    In the last couple years, I have watched Mark launch his family and life coaching business as he seeks to help others live their best life. I am ALWAYS skeptical of anyone who claims to be an expert and wants to lead others and I think that’s the biblical approach to take.

    Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

    James 3:1 ESV

    However, I have seen the 3 fantastic human beings that Mark & Adena have raised and watched the marriage they have built blossom and grow after they’ve been married over 20 years and would say they’ve earned the title of expert. As I’ve participated in workshops with Mark & Adena and listened to what they’ve taught on family and parenting what has impressed me most and what I think sets them apart is how they truly get to the root of issues that folks deal with in their marriage and families to a level I have yet to see anywhere else. I can wholeheartedly recommend Mark as someone I turn to when I have questions about marriage and parenting and would encourage you to do so also.

    Follow Mark: Website | Podcast | Facebook | LinkedIn

    Follow Friday posts are posts where I highlight someone I follow as a way to promote and encourage others.

  • Over It – Peace over Anxiety

    Over It – Peace over Anxiety

    When I started JeffMilesSays.com, I built it on the 5 pillars of Faith, Family, Fitness, Fun, & Functions. I have stated in previous posts that my faith underlies everything I do and is the bedrock for all decisions and the way I live my life. I have been asked on several occasions how I can remain so calm and when appropriate I will share how my faith enables me to do so, but I still have moments of anxiety where I have to take a moment and steady myself (last Friday was a perfect example, there were so many things going on that I needed to deal with, at one moment on Friday morning, I just had to take a moment to steady myself with a little meditation on scripture before I could move on).

    I have several friends and colleagues that struggle with anxiety some to the point where they are seeing counselors and some are on medication for it. As I listened to Ethan Vanse from our Broken Arrow church preach Part 2 of our Over It series (click here for part 1) I thought immediately of my friends who struggle with anxiety because it is the most compassionate, biblical explanation of how to deal with anxiety and the root issue of why we struggle with it. To be clear, medication and counseling have their place but watch the video below to see our service from this past weekend including Ethan’s sermon as well as one of our staff members sharing her struggle with anxiety. Normally, you can find the sermon notes on cotm.info but at some point they will switch over to the current sermon so I have saved off a pdf version here.

    If you would like to skip directly to the sermon, you can do so by clicking here.

  • Follow Friday – Tim Urban – Wait But Why

    Follow Friday – Tim Urban – Wait But Why

    The badge on my phone for the Pocket app currently sits at 5,132; I mentioned in my post earlier this week that I had a goal to process or read every single article I had saved to Pocket by the end of the year. I started at 5,412 and I’m on track to get through the list by the end of the year at my current pace (you know I would be tracking progress right 😁). What was interesting to me, was as I looked through my list of things I had saved, it reminded me partially of why that number was so high. At one point, I had gone through every single post on the Wait but Why website and saved every single article to Pocket.

    I first heard about Wait but Why several years ago and was instantly intrigued. I like thinking deeply and Tim Urban does a great job of really digging into a subject and creating very thoughtful posts. One of the ones that has recently really made me think is a post titled The Tail End. I strongly encourage you to spend some time on the Wait but Why website and think deeply. It is one of the few websites I have an email subscription to and would strongly encourage my readers to follow suit.

    Follow Tim: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | RSS Feed

    Follow Friday posts are posts where I highlight someone I follow as a way to promote and encourage other people.

  • Looking back on 2020 & forward to 2021

    I don’t know who the originator of the image above is but when I saw Will Smith post it to his Instagram I thought it perfectly captured how 2021 has started.

    I intentionally held off on any sort of 2020 lookback post due to a sneaking suspicion that 2020 wasn’t going to ride quietly off into the sunset. As I suspected, folks are already giving 2021 the side-eye due to the events of last week and asking if the return policy is still valid.

    Looking back at 2020…

    There are a couple of ways for me to look back at 2020. First, if I look at the numbers from a goals perspective I did really well on some goals, but not as well on others. From a weight perspective, I started the year strong, faltered a little mid-year as the stress of the pandemic and managing two major projects with a team completely remotely took hold, then started getting it back together as you can see from the graph below. Overall, I lost 18 pounds, so not quite what I wanted, but still a partial win in my book.

    From a mental standpoint, I have had a goal to continue learning Spanish & German and I did ok on that goal, definitely something to focus more on in 2021.

    Also on the mental front, due to my discovery and a new love for audiobooks, I blew my “reading” goal out of the water (by 15 books).

    On the less tangible/measurable/soft-skills front, there was A LOT of growth in 2020. Navigating the pandemic with kids starting the pivot-to-home strategy of online learning (and being quarantined an additional 2 times) while my team delivered on two major capital projects at work while completely remote (Gray Oak & Sweeny Hub Expansion – my team is completely responsible for the back office systems related to our pipelines and terminals) was a major growth time for me personally. 2020 was also a big year for me in terms of growth in empathy & vulnerability. The near-constant need to be keeping my finger on the pulse of my team’s emotional, mental, and physical health stretched me in ways I could never have imagined before 2020, stretching that I am extremely grateful for because it made me an even better leader.

    On the family front, each year except for a few years after Michael passed away, Mandy has created photo books to document what the Miles family did each year. This year, she determined that we were going to have a 2020 book done in time for Christmas. As she reviewed the book for the year she commented that our motto for 2020 must have been, “I’m so quarantined I’m going to be intentional.” Since we weren’t allowed to go and be around people, we went to the great outdoors, so much so that if you look at all of the pictures, it’s hard to believe we were actually quarantined. We did a great job getting out and exploring as a family. Here’s a picture from our trip to North Carolina where we went and hiked to find a waterfall (no masks because there were no people around 😁).

    Social Upheaval…

    2020 was a very hard year and it wouldn’t be fair to talk about 2020 without mentioning the social upheaval that happened in 2020. I’m currently reading Atomic Habits by James Clear and it had a section that had I read it at any other point in time it would probably not have hit me quite as hard. He’s talking about how habits can either compound for you or against you.

    Outrage compounds. Riots, protests, and mass movements are rarely the result of a single event. Instead, a long series of microaggressions and daily aggravations slowly multiply until one event tips the scales and outrage spreads like wildfire.

    Atomic Habits – p. 19 – James Clear

    On June 1st, 2020, I wrote a post titled We make better music together… and I stand by everything I wrote in that post. The sad thing is that we are even more divided now than we were then, largely in part in my mind due to the backfire effect. The theme of diversity and inclusion has taken front and center stage as we roll into 2021 and I fully intend on writing about my thoughts in D&I very soon. In Jesse Andersen’s Listening Session episode with Brie Davis on The Art of Understanding podcast, Brie mentioned that due to the pandemic we didn’t have anything else to do so when the atrocities against Ahmad Arbury, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd were committed, the world could do nothing but watch and respond. My immediate response was to become very reflective on my behavior and I immediately reached out to the folks who had previously been on my team as well as the folks currently on my team to check on them as well as ask the very probing question, “Did I ever do anything as your supervisor that was racist?” I asked the same question of my current female employees replacing “racist” with “misogynistic”. If 2020 taught me anything as a leader and human being it was to be extremely vulnerable with others as well as very self-reflective and ensure there were no planks in my own eye.

    Looking forward to 2021…

    The subject line of one of my email newsletters as 2021 rolled around…

    As I look forward to 2021, there’s nothing intrinsic to 2021 that is going to make it any different than 2020. I had a really hard time keeping my mouth shut when people would say they couldn’t wait till 2020 was over. I know from a mental standpoint, there’s a natural mental break between 2021, but we’re the folks that got ourselves into the 2020 mess and we’re the ones that in 2021, with God’s help, will have to get ourselves out of this mess.

    From a pure numbers standpoint, I have a goal to lose weight and get down to and maintain at 280 pounds, read/listen to 50 books, get 2 Duolingo Spanish & German lessons under my belt for at least 292 of the 365 days this year (80%), and get through the entire list of 5,412 articles saved to Pocket (either by reading the article or deciding that I don’t really need to read it anymore because the moment has passed) as well as make major strides on an application I want to write once I am finished getting my blog healthy again and am blogging regularly.

    On the less tangible side, my goals are to be a better leader, helping others navigate the cycles of grief, and find meaning, that they’re inevitably going to be going through this year (Brené Brown had a great podcast interview with David Kessler that I need to brush up on and I recommend you listen to as well where David explores the 6th stage of grief). I also plan to share quite a bit on my blog. The impetus for me restarting/refocusing on my blog was through my 40+ years on this rock I have learned A LOT of lessons the hard way and gained a lot of perspectives and I have felt a need to share those lessons with others as a way to give back.

    Finally, my goal is to continue to Love, Lead, & Build.

    By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

    John 13:35 (NIV)

    If there’s any way I can help you, please connect with me and reach out. I really want 2021 to be a year where I continue to invest in others and build others up.

  • Follow Friday – Kevin Carr

    As I look back on 2020 (official lookback post coming soon), one of the things I miss is being able to go to movie theaters. My family and I were able to catch Onward right before theaters shut down in March so we did get the theater experience in 2020 but for anyone who knows me, they know I LOVE going to movies. Being an introvert, there would be times when I was single where on a Friday night I would go to the theater and buy 2 or 3 tickets and just go to back-to-back movies. I love watching movies.

    Back when I got my first iPod (do you even remember those?) and first started listening to podcasts, one of the first podcasts I found was Fat Guys at the Movies among other podcasts related to movies. What I loved about these guys though was they weren’t snobby movie critics (at the time there were two guys on the podcast, thus the name). I have always disagreed with a lot of movie critics in that my goal in watching a movie has nothing to do with cinematography and the more technical aspects of a movie (as long as it’s not so bad it detracts from watching the movie), my main question is whether or not I was entertained while I was watching the movie. I put very little stock in the critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes (I usually pay more attention to the audience score if I look at it at all). What I liked about Kevin in particular was that even though he was a critic, he “got” what the typical moviegoer wanted in a movie. Plus he liked a lot of the same movies I did which helped though I don’t share his fascination with horror movies, but that’s ok.

    Last year, when I started listening to podcasts again, Fat Guys at the Movies was the first podcast I added back and have loved hearing from Kevin again and have even been able to engage him and get a response around his thoughts on Inception because he does have a very strong opinion on Inception and Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker.

    If you love movies like I do and are looking for a good way to keep up to date on what’s going on in the movie world, I would definitely recommend following Kevin and listening to Fat Guys at the Movies.

    Follow Kevin Carr: Facebook | Twitter | Website | Podcast

    Follow Friday posts are posts where I highlight someone I follow as a way to promote and encourage other people.

  • In light of yesterday’s events (a.k.a. yesterday sucked)

    As a leader, today you’re probably dealing with a lot of emotions personally as well as with your team members. As I worked to navigate this with my team, I sent the following note, feel free to borrow & modify as you see fit.

    Team,

    I wanted to send a note to the team in light of yesterday’s events, that being said, staring at a blank email I struggled to know where to even begin so I apologize this didn’t come out first thing this morning.

    Having lived in all the different places I have lived, my social media feeds encompass the entire political spectrum and it is VERY evident, regardless of where you land politically, yesterday was a day of major disappointments and frustration and I personally don’t remember a day where I was as easily distracted by every alert that came across my phone more than yesterday. A day fraught with as much emotion as yesterday had, many people are probably still feeling the effects and probably will for a while. The question becomes how do we move forward? That question will be addressed at multiple levels of our society many of which we have no control over, but in the span that we control as a team I’d like to set some guidelines.

    1. Start with the fact that on a continual basis, everyone on this team has exhibited that even though there are wide differences of opinion on many different subjects, we all care about each other and want what’s best for each other. With this fact as the foundation of how we interact with each other, we’ll get through this just fine and come out stronger on the other end.
    2. Acknowledge whether or not you’re ready to discuss what happened yesterday and be transparent with those on the team and respectful when others tell you they don’t want to talk about it or be around it being discussed. It is ok if emotions are still too raw.
    3. If you’re not ready to engage with the team, engage with someone in a constructive manner whether that be a friend, partner/spouse, or a professional counselor (for the employees in the group do not hesitate to engage our EAP resources, contractors, please work with your company to understand what benefits you have available). Do not go through this alone!
    4. Consider a media/social media fast – Tim Ferriss made a great point yesterday when he posted and followed up on this Tweet [added below], sometimes the worst thing you can do in moments like this is to keep scrolling…
    5. Finally, if at all possible, avoid echo chambers. When you’re ready, seek different perspective and understandings of what happened. We can all use this as an opportunity to grow. As terrible as yesterday was, it would be even more terrible if we didn’t learn from it and the only way we can do that constructively is together.

    As you all know, my door is always open, please feel free to engage me with any questions you may have.

  • Follow Friday – Jon Favreau

    So, today’s a big day, the season finale for Season 2 of The Mandalorian drops today. I’m super excited and decided to channel that excitement by letting my inner nerd out a little bit. Today’s Follow Friday post is about one of my favorite people in Hollywood, Jon Favreau [imdb].

    When I think about all the things I geek out about, Jon Favreau [Wikipedia] is associated in some way. For those of you who are Marvel Cinematic Universe fans, you’ll recognize him as Happy Hogan, Tony Stark’s comedic right-hand man (he has also had his hand in several of the MCU movies as either director, executive producer, or both). If you know anything about Shannara, you’ll be happy to know he was one of the executive producers on the show The Shannara Chronicles [affiliate link]. Finally, If you’re a Star Wars fan, you love him because he is the creator of The Mandalorian. It was even rumored at one point that Jon would replace Kathleen Kennedy as the person in charge of everything Star Wars at Disney, something I would absolutely love to see.

    I don’t typically get star struck, but if you were to ask me if there’s anyone in Hollywood I would geek out about spending time with, at the top of the list you’d find Jon. I can imagine there’s a lot of my inner geek that would be showing if I ended up in a conversation with him.

    If you have even a hint of an inner nerd, you should follow Jon Favreau and keep track of what he’s doing!

    Follow Jon: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

    Follow Friday posts are posts where I highlight someone I follow as a way to promote and encourage other people.

  • Follow Friday – Me

    On a normal FollowFriday post, I would be pointing you to someone else that I follow as a way to encourage others and bring value to your life, referring you to someone who has impacted me in some way or another for the good. However, now that I have had some time to start rebuilding my blog, cleaning it up, posting a few new posts, and getting some of the features implemented that I feel are necessary I wanted to take a moment and explain where I’m coming from, effectively officially re-launching my blog and asking you to join me on this journey.

    As I mentioned in my post last Friday, I have been queuing up post ideas for quite some time and have finally gotten to a point where during the course of 2021 I will be providing more than just FollowFriday posts, providing my followers with even more value. But first, I want to explain my philosophy behind why I blog, and second, explain the types of things you should expect to see on JeffMilesSays.com.

    First off, what’s my philosophy? I’ve alluded to it in a previous post, but my intention is to add value. Not by regurgitating articles you can find in other places on the internet, but by bringing my thoughts to relevant topics (more on that below) and offering my perspective on what’s going on in this world and how we can be better members of this big blue ball circling the sun, enriching each other’s lives.

    From a content perspective, there are 5 pillars of what I will talk about on my blog. You see them in the title of the site, but I will explain each below.

    Faith – My faith is the foundation for everything in my life. It influences how I conduct myself and relate to others, raise my children, and conduct my daily affairs. For too long, Christians have been known for what they’re against, I will show you what I’m for (your good) in how and what I write. I plan to offer a fresh, faith-based perspective on the world around me. From time-to-time, I will quote Scripture. It will be quoted to help you understand my perspective, but never to beat you over the head. It will be quoted to you from a basis of love and understanding, to encourage you to be better, never to tear you down.

    Family – Second only to my faith is my family. As a family man, I want to offer a perspective that hopefully builds up marriages and families based on what I find in Scripture and what I’ve experienced in the nearly 15 years of marriage and parenting I’ve lived. From a qualification standpoint, I am not a counselor and I would encourage you to take what I say as a perspective to add to your bag, not Gospel truth (unless I’m quoting Scripture obviously 😀).

    Fitness – I am not a fitness professional. Let me say that again, I am not a fitness professional. I am a banged up, former football player turned desk jockey trying to make sure I don’t keel over at my desk and am around to walk my daughters down the aisle and love on my grandbabies (and great-grandbabies). Any fitness opinions I give will be just that, opinions based on my own experience and from my research because fitness is something I enjoy and is absolutely necessary to lead a healthy and productive life.

    Fun – Life has enough to bring you down, from time-to-time, my posts will just be for fun. In my weekly team meetings, I currently have a section called Monday Funday where I try to bring something I found in the previous week to include that made me laugh for one reason or another and I intend to, from time to time, include things on my blog just to make you laugh, but my intent is never to be offensive or crude.

    Functions – In your life, you wear many hats. I’m no different. I’m a husband, father, computer programmer, book lover, people leader, moviegoer, and workout junky. Posts in the Functions space (it’s a little light right now but it will grow) will be used to help you be more productive with the different hats you wear. Sometimes they will contain code snippets, other times they may be leadership principles for your work, your home, or even both. You never know what you’re going to get in this section.

    I will try to keep my posts in logical sections, but sometimes, life just isn’t logical so I may come at you with something completely out of leftfield (I’m writing this at the end of 2020, the least logical year I think all of us have ever experienced). Just bear with me and we’ll get through this.

    As I hope I have made clear to this point, my intention is always to build you up, leaving you better, never to tear you down. However, if tearing you down is necessary, it will never be to harm you (I will never leave you there) but to remove harmful beliefs and perspectives holding you back only to replace them with ones that will hopefully help you become a better person.

    Follow Me: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Mailing list | RSS or use the subscription section below.

    Follow Friday posts are posts where I highlight someone I follow as a way to promote and encourage other people.

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  • Follow Friday – Seth Godin

    Follow Friday – Seth Godin

    Those that have worked with me, especially those that know me from Phillips 66, know that I’m a big productivity nut. (I founded a group called Productivity@Work as a way to help the folks at Phillips 66 be more productive in their daily lives). One of these days if it makes sense I will share productivity tips on this blog, but as I said in my previous Tuesday TechTip post, I’m not going to rehash things that you can easily find in other places on the internet. One thing that shocks people sometimes is the fact that the person I email most frequently is myself. Different things work for different people but, especially since the advent of the smartphone, for me, if I want a quick reminder, my best bet is to fire off a quick email to myself. I have several different email accounts for different purposes, one of which is used for this blog. The other night I was cleaning out my blog inbox, transferring all the blog post ideas I had sent myself to my note-taking software, and it became very clear who my next Follow Friday post should be about.

    I don’t know exactly when I started following Seth, but it has been at least 5 years, but I would guess it is actually closer to a decade if not more. The earliest case of me emailing to myself a Seth Godin blog post as something that encouraged me to think more deeply or differently was back in 2015 but I’m almost certain it was in the early-2000’s timeframe that I found Seth and started my subscription to his blog (to give you an anchor point, on November 6, 2017, he wrote a post titled This is post 7,000, which if you do the math means he started blogging in the late 1990s since he blogs daily).

    A lot of people will look at my background and look at what Seth does and wonder how I even started following him in the first place. With my background being in software development and technology and Seth’s being in marketing, it doesn’t look like a very natural match, but what I’ve found is that on a daily basis, Seth’s blog makes me think about things in a different way than what I would normally think about them even though I couldn’t actually tell you how I found his blog in the first place. All I know is his thought-provoking posts have been a daily read of mine for as long as I can remember.

    As I continue to clean up and prepare my blog for more in-depth content posts I will continue to post Follow Friday posts but I really look forward to sharing some of the things that have come from thinking deeply about Seth’s posts so please stay tuned.

    In the meantime, use the links below and scattered throughout this post to get connected to Seth and his content.

    Follow Seth Godin: Website| Blog | Medium | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Wikipedia

    Follow Friday posts are posts where I highlight someone I follow as a way to promote and encourage other people.

  • Follow Friday – Julie Nolke

    Follow Friday – Julie Nolke

    2020 has been a year for the history books for sure. There’s a joke I saw on the internet that said when kids go to college to study history in the future. If they choose to have an emphasis on 2020, they will need to specify which quarter they are going to focus their studies on.

    As we roll into the end of November and those of us in the United States get ready to celebrate a non-traditional Thanksgiving I keep hearing, “I can’t wait for 2020 to be over.” The realist in me wants to ask these folks what do they expect will magically happen on January 1, 2021, but out of love, I keep my mouth shut. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to put 2020 behind me, but I sincerely feel like we’re in for a long haul, we have a long road ahead of us and there will be a lot of work for those of us who lead to help others as we come out of this pandemic.

    With how heavy this year has been, humor has been absolutely necessary. That’s where Julie Nolke comes in. Julie is a Canadian actress and comedian that used her quarantine to bring her craft to others via YouTube. I haven’t watched many of her videos outside of her Explaining the Pandemic to my Past Self series but the few I have are just as funny.

    On this final Friday before Thanksgiving, I want to spread a little joy through humor to those of you reading my blog, and I’ll start by sharing Julie’s pandemic videos. Enjoy and have a great Thanksgiving!

    I’m going to apologize in advance for the swear words, sorry…

    Explaining the Pandemic to my Past Self – Part 1
    Explaining the Pandemic to my Past Self – Part 2
    Explaining the Pandemic to my Past Self – Part 3

    Follow Julie Nolke: YouTube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

    Follow Friday posts are posts where I highlight someone I follow as a way to promote and encourage other people.