I love the process of entering into new life phases such as graduating college, getting engaged, starting a business, or raising money. Each phase, so far, has approached me a bit like a Doppler Effect. I hear the phase coming. It gets louder. It’s here! It fades away. It’s gone.

A life phase that is currently approaching, for me, is to have our first child. Right after we got married four years ago, I first heard the whispers. Then the whispers turned into casual conversation, then into definitive statements, then into action planning. No babies have happened yet…sorry to disappoint , but because the idea of kids is becoming more and more a reality, it’s interesting to notice how I’m viewing the world differently already.

This brings me back to the fact that plane bathrooms have baby diaper stations. I’ve used hundreds of plane bathrooms over the past eight years, but I’ve never noticed the diaper stations until last week. They’ve always been there, I just wasn’t ready to notice yet. Reminds me of the phrase…

The teacher shows up when the student’s ready.

Makes me wonder what else is going on around me at any given moment that I’m unconsciously not noticing yet.

It’s 5:30am and I’m waiting for my Supershuttle to the airport, but quickly wanted to record a feeling I had last night that shook me to the core.

My alarm was set to go off at 4am, but for whatever reason I woke up at 3:50 instead. I looked over at my wife and something about the light coming in from our window gave her face a pale, blueish color. A moment later I realized I couldn’t hear her breathing. I went into panic mode and quickly shook her body while calling her name. In what felt like an hour, but was probably only a half-second, she didn’t respond. Then she took a deep breath in and said my name and asked me what was wrong. She was totally fine.

My heart was beating so fast. My mind was racing. I felt a sense of sadness I’d never felt before. The feeling was so deep it felt like it was burning my soul. I was in pure panic mode for a few moments and 90 minutes later, I still can’t shake the feeling out of me.

4:00 PM UPDATE…

I’m now in Erie, PA gearing up for a keytalk to kickoff a leadership conference for the Penn State – Erie student leaders. I just got an email letting me know a really close friend’s wife just passed away unexpectedly and she was 6 1/2 months pregnant. My brother knew the wife really well (they went to grad school together). I became close friends with the husband over the past four years. Just a week ago we were having drinks together updating each other on the exciting things happening in our lives. Everything was great a week ago. Now his life is totally different and I suspect he is feeling, and will feel for a long while, the same deep burn of sadness I felt for only a few brief seconds this morning. My soul burns for him right now.

Yesterday I wrote about the idea of impermanence of life and it’s days like today that make me stop, take a deep breath in, and not take one moment of life for granted.

A family friend unexpectedly passed away a couple weekends ago. He was much too young for death so it was extra sad for everyone who knew him.

As most news now-a-days, word of his death spread virally to all relevant parties and the grievances started flowing in. Instead of traditional grievance letters to the family, I watched in awe as tons of people turned to his Facebook profile as a way to say their parting words. I’ve read about this phenomenon a few times across the web, but this was my first time experiencing it first hand, so wanted to share some of my feelings…

• It’s both sad and comforting at the same time. The sadness set in as I read through all the personal stories people shared about him. The comfort set in because I realized how many people knew and appreciated him and I wasn’t alone in my feelings.
• His final status update is immortalized forever and without over-analyzing it too much, it was a totally normal update for him, but it’s there for us to interact with…forever. His final gift to the world. His parting words, whether he wanted them to be or not. Which gives him this sense of immortality because somehow, now I get to interact with him and “talk” to him. I know I use a few auto-email tools and have some things scheduled out for future release. If I passed away today, several people would get emails from me as if I were still alive. The social web gives us an odd immortality.
• Lastly, our family friend was too young to die, and nothing about his latest interactions hinted at warning signs of a coming death. So as I look at his Facebook pictures, reflect on my experiences with him, and read through his latest status updates, I realize how close death really is at any moment. If it can happen to him unexpectedly, why not me? 

Watching the grievances of death, especially when it’s unexpected, unfold on a Facebook Profile, is a cold shot of reality about how fragile life really is.

(yes I did snap this from within the stall I was using…don’t judge)

My dad turned 70 this year and in celebration my oldest brother, Robin, had his son record this cutness filled video. 

“Do what you have to do in life, move forward and you’ll be surprised by how much these things didn’t matter.” – Modified Don Draper quote by Jeff Lail.

Love him, or hate him, James Altucher is quickly becoming one of my favorite bloggers that inspires me to write more open and candid about my life and learnings. Below is an excerpt from a post he wrote on advice he wants to give his daughters. I think it’s advice that everyone should subscribe to.

• Fly kites as much as possible. While they are in the air, they keep you on the ground
• Don’t read the newspaper so much. They sometimes breed the worst horror fiction.
• Never do anything you don’t want to do. Even if it seems selfish at first, life is too short.
• Diversify everything in your life, including the people you listen to for advice.
• Learn lots of games. They turn you into a killer without you ever having to hurt someone.
• This is a cliché, but never listen to anyone who says “You can’t do that”. Those are usually the people who can’t do it. Not you.
• Even though life is short, there’s also no rush. You have to put on a parachute before you jump out of a plane.
• Preparation is the key to having good luck. And lots of it.
• Every day is an adventure even though you might not realize the specifics of it until years later.

Today I was asked by someone at #ACPA11 if, “I was in the family?” Not knowing what he meant, I paused and laughed thinking he meant the mob. I then said, “What do you mean?” He responded by saying, “Oh never mind then, that means you’re not.” He went on to tell me it’s another way of asking someone if they are gay. My response was, “Ah, no sorry I’m not.” He then responded, “It’s funny people feel the need to say sorry.” I agreed. I then stupidly pointed to my wedding ring and said I’m actually married. Which really isn’t, nor should be, a fact about your sexual orientation. It just means I’ve committed my life to someone as gays are now also ‘legally’ able to as well.

I love when I have life moments where I learn something by tripping and landing in a pile of mud. Next time I walk down that path I’ll know how to better walk so not to sound as stupid. I’ll know what the question “In the Family” really means, and I’ll know not to say “sorry” as if I need to apologize for who I am, just as much as he doesn’t need to apologize to me for who he is.

For six years I worked from home and thought it was perfect to be able to stroll from the kitchen to "work" with my oatmeal in hand. For the past ten months I've been working, for the first time in my life, out of an office and now I know I'll never go back to working from home.

It's not that working from home doesn't have its positives, it's just that I didn't realize how much the negatives actually out weigh the positives until I wasn't working from home.

The biggest advantage I've discovered in "office life" is the separation of work and life. While working at home, I was never good at setting boundaries between when I was working and when I wasn't. The computer was always just an arms length away.

Now I've physically forced myself to have boundaries, and mentally I get excited for both. While eating my oatmeal in the morning, I mentally get excited for work. Like a basketball player prepping for a game. Then as my day winds down, usually around six, I mentally get excited to head home and not be working. In both situations, I'm more present than I've ever been before.

Another advantage of "office life" is in valuing my work. When I worked from home, work time was always a bit flexible. If something came up (family call, store run, mail, tv show, etc) I would easily be able to pause my work and go do it. Even more so than Annie, who also worked from home, because she had a boss she contracted for. I am my boss. Now my work hours are more defined and everyone around me treats them as such. It allows me to be more focused and present while at work.

On travel days, I tend to stay home before heading off to the airport, but I find it really hard to get into the work zone while there because I've trained myself so well over the past ten months to disassociate my home from my work.

I know some people work from home with great success, I realized I'm not one of them. All I want to do at home is spend quality time with family and friends.