Jeremy Phillips

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!

“At 28-years-old my goals were met,” said Jeff Fray, Psychologist/Consultant.  “I had my doctorate and had built up a practice that included 8 or 9 counselors.  That was when I realized I was living life on a treadmill.”

While browsing around the intarweb this evening I came across an interesting article – Living the Purposeful Life, quoted above – that made me stop and think about what I am actually doing with my life. Until the recent past I have dedicated a good portion of my life to making money. I’ve probably made and lost more money in my short life than most people will ever make and the one thing I have figured out so far is that money isn’t real. It holds no intrinsic value. Granted, it’s a useful commodity to have but does a surplus of it actually make your life better?

So today I’m finally declaring my quest to figure out what I’m supposed to do with my life, set some plans and move forward with them. True, I may fail. That’s never stopped me before though and I don’t think it will stop me this time.

I’ve had more than a few people ask if I’m alive over the past few weeks so I figured I would post an update of what I’ve been up to since my last blog post almost two months ago. So, a brief summary of what happened after I got back from New Jersey, in no particular order.

• I worked remotely for a couple weeks providing support for a mining company doing an Exchange migration using Quest Migration Manager for Exchange. The servers were spread out all over the world on poor WAN links, so this was an exercise in patience more than anything else. This was also the first time I used GoToMyPC for any length of time and I can definitely recommend you try it out; It’s incredibly easy to use.
• I took most of the month of June off, which provided a needed sanity break for me – I only logged into a computer three times in three and a half weeks.
• I turned 30 on June 1 and my wife setup a surprise birthday party for me. This was especially difficult for her as she didn’t have contact info for any of my friends and I have a habit of locking my machine when I’m not using it. She was ingenious enough to wait for me to leave my machine unlocked and then search through my Outlook contacts for names she remembered. So don’t feel bad if you didn’t get invited. ;)
• Participated in lots of end of year activities at my children’s school, including field day and my youngest daughter’s kindergarten concert among other things.
• Flew down to beautiful and exciting Vacaville, CA to see my niece’s high school graduation. I still can’t believe she’s actually 18 now. Yes, my sisters are quite a bit older than I am.
• My mother-in-law flew over from North Carolina and stayed with us for a little over a week. As her sister (Holly’s Aunt) lives in Wenatchee, we made a day trip to visit them in Leavenworth.
• I took the family on a hike down to Snoqualmie Falls. I hadn’t been there since I was about my son’s age, it was just as awesome as I remember.
• While Ryan went on a 7 day Rite of Passage Journey (to simplify; that’s kind of like summer camp except it’s backpacking) I took Taylor & Tori camping. We went to Turlo in the Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest.
• My sister-in-law graduated to become a ritual leader. I’m not exactly sure what that means but she’s happy about it so we’re happy for her.
• On July 1st, I started a long term project at Microsoft as a v- consultant supporting Outlook Live and Live@Edu. It’s a VERY large implementation based on Exchange 2010 and it’s pretty damn fun so far.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to. Hope it answered all the questions that everyone keeps asking me but feel free to ask in the comments. I’ll finish up with a quote that I’ve been thinking about quite a bit:

Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -Robert Thurman

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost, 1920. Mountain Interval

I used to regale friends, family and strangers on the street with random facts to know and tell. I don’t do that anymore, but I’ve decided to start posting random snippets about the past and present of my life.

Once upon a time I sang Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd at the top of my lungs at 2:15AM in a Wawa. I’m tone deaf but the fact really didn’t bother me at the time. I remember making a few people laugh, and even if they were laughing at me it was most definitely worth it.

Wawa has good coffee by the way. REALLY good coffee.