Jeremy Phillips

This morning I came across a site that has simply entranced me for some odd reason - Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos. It’s definitely worth giving the site a brief read and possibly popping it into your RSS reader. A few that I really like so far are below.

the tigers have found me

rage, rage

Real Courage

I found a link to the image on Reddit and have no clue who took it. If you do please let me know so I can give credit where it is due. More info on the Yosemite Firefall is available here.

I like to try new things and back in October I decided to try moving my blog off of WordPress. Initially I tried Tumblr, which was decent but didn’t have all the features I was looking for. Then I found Posterous and was generally pretty happy with having my blog there. It was free, fast, stable and had all the features I wanted initially. Then I started having issues; e-mailing a picture would result in 3 or 4 identical posts with only 1 post having a good copy of the picture. I also experienced occasional timeout issues when hitting my site but can’t really complain about that as it’s free.

I figured if I was moving back to WordPress I would take the opportunity to move everything over to jerephil.com, a domain name I registered about a year ago. I’ve been using jerephil as a username for the past two years or so and I have yet to find a site where the username is taken. So everything, except some of the posts I made on Posterous, is now located here. The important ones are done and I’ll be moving the pictures across as time allows.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

It’s December, which means I have been spending quite a bit of time thinking about what I’ve accomplished in the past year and what I hope to accomplish next year. My list of accomplishments is fairly short but significant.

1)      Left Azaleos of my own accord |  I can’t say much about why (I’m still under an NDA and I’m generally a nice guy) but suffice it to say this choice was a Very Good Thing for me.

2)      Dipped my toe back into the waters of being an independent consultant | My original plan after leaving Azaleos was to go back to being an independent consultant, and I did for a short time. About 1.5 months to be exact; mid-April to early June. I only ended up traveling for one week but found it fun and exciting. I still run Cohesive Logic but honestly have not done a great deal of business there in the past few months.

3)      Took most of June off | I really needed this. I hardly ever even logged into a computer for almost exactly a month.

4)      Started at Microsoft | I’m not a full time employee (not a particular desire of mine) but I’ve been working on some fun projects supporting the largest Exchange 2010 implementation in the world since July 1^st. It’s good experience and has helped me mentally ‘reset’ to prepare for goals I’m laying out for the next few years.

5)      Watched my kids grow up some more | They are pretty cool little people, rapidly turning into young adults. I’m impressed by how well rounded they are and am constantly amazed at the sheer number of good decisions they make on their own. This tells me we’re doing something right in the parenting arena, which is always a good feeling.

Thinking about 2010 and beyond, I have a bit of a quandary as the path I want to take professionally is at odds with the path I want to take in my personal life. The easy answer, and one that I have heard continually, is “put your personal life ahead of your professional life”. Some people can do this but unfortunately I cannot be happy in my personal life if I’m not working towards the goals I have set for my professional life, and the goals I have for my professional life have a direct impact on my personal life. I have come to the conclusion that, for me at least, those two parts of my life are inextricably linked; I can’t prioritize one over the other without sacrificing my own happiness. I would much rather achieve 80% of my goals in both arenas than succeed at one and fail at the other.

How do I see this working? I was talking to a friend/mentor of mine once upon a time and asked him how he maintained balance in his life. His answer was quite simple but I didn’t really understand it at the time. “My personal life goes up, business goes down. So then I focus on business to bring it back up and my personal life goes down. Rinse and repeat.” Since then I’ve started thinking of the different parts of my life like biorhythms and the more I contemplate the idea, the more I realize that this is the approach I will have to take to achieve all my goals. Different parts of my life will be flourishing at different times, I just have to figure out a way for them all to stay in balance over time like the picture below. Luckily I have an understanding wife and great kids who always support me in the decisions I make.

I was going to type up my goals for 2010 but I’m not 100% complete with them at the moment so will reserve those for a later post in early January. Thanks for reading!