Monthly Archives: June 2010

Today Brittany turned the ripe OLD age of 14!  She was SOOOO excited!  One of the main reasons is that now she gets to go to church dances!  She has been excited about that for months now!  After I got home from work, we had a family party for her.  Brittany went to the store with Angela and got a large variety of Indian foods that sounded pretty good to her.  We cooked all of the food up for dinner.  Some of it was pretty good, while some was “eat once and never try again” food!   🙂  We all had pretty active stomachs afterward from all the spices and the curry.  Our favorite was the potato Samosas.

After dinner, Brittany opened presents and we ate cake and ice cream.  Zach and Kirstyn set up a “birthday throne” down in the basement where Brittany sat to open her presents.  It was very sweet of them to do.

Brittany’s favorite part of her birthday was our Indian dinner.  I don’t think the rest of us felt the same way (especially that night when we went to bed), however!  🙂

Happy birthday, Itty Bitty!

Today was a wonderful day!  I didn’t go into the office, but instead drove up to Kraft’s world headquarters in Northfield (Chicago suburb) and attended a re-connect for the Midwest Regional Leadership Forum (RLF).  This event was much larger than just our class of 2009.  There were people there from as far back as 1997!  Our 2009 group had the most there in attendance, however.  I think that it was pretty close to half.  We are a pretty close group and to have 19 of us there to share the day together was great! 

The event started off last night with a dinner at Kraft’s R&D kitchens.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make the event.  It sounded pretty fun!  Everyone put on aprons and they cooked their own dinner in a huge room of kitchens…  kind of like high school home ecconomics on steroids.  🙂 

Today’s event was wonderful!  We started off with the CIO of Kraft speaking to us as the keynote speaker.  He had some wonderful things to say that were very inspiring.  His main focus was “don’t be afraid to screw up.”  Fear of making mistakes stops innovation in its tracks. 

We then had some other discussions around innovation (with a group activity), around what we have learned since the last time we met, and we discussed a book by Marshall Goldsmith called “Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It.”  In this book, Marshall shares the ways in which to get–and keep–our Mojo.  Our professional and personal Mojo is impacted by four key factors: identity (who do you think you are?), achievement (what have you done lately?), reputation (who do other people think you are–and what have you’ve done lately?), and acceptance (what can you change–and when do you need to just “let it go”?). Goldsmith outlines the positive actions leaders must take, with their teams or themselves, to initiate winning streaks and keep them coming.   Mojo is:  that positive spirit–towards what we are doing–now–that starts from the inside–and radiates to the outside. Mojo is at its peak when we are experiencing both happiness and meaning in what we are doing and communicating this experience to the world around us. The Mojo Toolkit provides fourteen practical tools to help you achieve both happiness and meaning–not only in business, but in life.

What a great experience!  I’m looking forward to next year’s Midwest re-connect which will be in Milwaukee at We Energies.

Today, Angela and the girls helped out at a wedding open house.  It was for a young man that I had in my seminary class when he was a freshman!  😐  It’s crazy to see time fly.  One day you’re teaching a shy 14-year-old Church History, and the next day he’s returned from his mission and is getting married!  Where did those 8 years go?  🙂

Oh no!  Stay off the sidewalks!  Sarah got her drive’s license today!  She’s official now and doesn’t need us in the car anymore!  Angela took her over to the DMV today and was really worried.  Sarah was pretty worried about a couple of things that she hadn’t practiced enough on, but things went very well.  The instructor that gave her the driving test was actually really cool and Sarah said it was fun!   He took Sarah and then assured Angela that everything would be fine and they left!  🙂 

Sarah said the driving test was really easy and she only hit the curb once while she was demonstrating up- and downhill parking.  Her big concern was backing around corners, because if you hit the curb, it’s an automatic fail.  She did it well and passed with flying colors!

For us, that means 2 things:  1) We don’t have to cart Sarah around to everything she needs to go to, and 2) we have to shell out a bunch of money for insurance now!  😐

Oh well, if Sarah can get herself to things without us always having to take her everywhere (especially with Brittany to Seminary in the fall, we are happy about it)!  Congratulations, Sarah!  Great job!