What a different experience from the earlier playoff game. Congrats to Clemson for a fantastic win and to Ohio State for an amazing season. Such an exciting one to watch! 🏈


😂 Infinite reflection

As Micah (7yo) and I were standing in the bathroom looking at the near infinite reflection in the opposing mirrors, he said, “Dad, I just wish I could sneeze with my eyes open.”

Me: “Then your eyes would pop out.”

Micah: “I know. I just wish they would keep working. When I try and look in these mirrors that go on for miles and miles, my head just gets in the way. So I want to hold them out like this so that I can see all the way.” (As he holds his hands out to the side of his head and ducks out of the way.)


😂 Zombies under the bed

Micah (7yo): “Dad, do you believe in them?”

Me: “In what, bud?”

Micah: “In the zombies under my bed.”

Me: “Oh, that sounds scary!”

Micah: “No, I speak their language.”

Me: “Are they nice?”

Micah: “Only to people who speak their language.”

Me: “What does it sound like?”

Micah: “Urrgh mmrrgh errrr ggrrr.”

Annie: “Oh, like this–I can speak it too. Mmrrgh aarrgh errr.”

Micah: “No, it’s more nerdy. Get it, Dad? More Nerd-y. (As he eats a scoop of Nerds) Ha. Ha. Ha.”


🎥 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

With IT department


I felt so lucky to present with our wellness leader to over a hundred manufacturing employees at my company today on mental health. I was introduced as the “company mental health mascot” and have never been prouder of a title before. Really touched by the response. 🧠


Micah (7yo) was taking out the yellow bin filled with recycling. “I need someone to come hold the garbage lid up.”

Wife: “Just put the bucket down and open the lid and then pick it back up and dump it in.”

Micah: “What, and you think gravity will just stop!?”


😂 Early proposal

Annie (5yo): “Can I marry Micah (her 7yo brother)?”

Wife: “No, you have to marry someone you’re not related to.”

Annie: “I’m not related to Conor! (her 5yo friend) Conor, do you want to marry me?”

Conor: “Uhh…”

Wife: “Well, you have to be older, so maybe he’ll think about it more when he gets older.”

Annie: “Conor! Conor! Conor! Do you want to marry me? Do you want to marry me?”

Conor: “Uhh, I just like going to school.”


🎥 A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Spontaneous date with my wife and baby


I was struck this morning by how beautiful the moss looked on the trunk of this tree. It was a welcome pleasant thought to offset the dark swirl occupying my mind. 🧘🏻‍♂️

Mossy tree

What a disappointing loss for the Utes tonight. I was so sure we had a good chance at the playoffs. Oh well. Such a great season! 🏈


😂 Micah (7yo) called to my wife, “BBS.”

He took five steps, then went back, and said, “I made up a new one: BBS. It means ‘be back soon.’”

He took off again, and then turned around and said, “But this case, non-BBS. Because I’m busy watching football.” Then he left for good.


What a shameful, degrading ad I just saw on @FOXSports for the OUvOSU game.

“What was the original meaning of the word bedlam? An asylum. Literally, a mad house.”

With its images and tone, it was a serious blow to society’s view of mental health. We can & must do better.


😂 Black teeth

Micah (7yo): “Do I need braces? My brother said I do because my bottom teeth are getting brown.”

Wife: “You need to brush for that, not braces.”

Me: “I’ve seen people who had black teeth and some fell out from not brushing.”

Annie (5yo): “Ugh! I’m glad you brush your teeth.”

Micah, a little worried: “If teeth are black, can you brush them and turn them white?”

Me: “No. When they are black, they are dead.”

Micah: “When they are brown, can you?”

Me: “Yes, you can get them white. But you need to brush morning and night every day.”

Micah: “I haven’t been brushing at night.”

Me: “Thanks for telling–“

Micah: “It’s because I don’t have time. Cuz I’m so tired after a long chore day!” (With a significant look at my wife.)

(After a couple minutes) Micah: “Did you ever see black teeth on the ground?”

Me: “No, I never saw them fall out.”

Micah: “Does the tooth fairy take black teeth?”

Me and my wife: “NO! Definitely not.”


💮 Let’s take care of us

The traditional holiday season can be full of joy, but also sorrow and heartache. Even for those who do not struggle with mental illnesses, there are many reasons that could cause this time of year to be difficult.


As I mentioned last week, we had the opportunity to spend some time with our IT department on mental health and wellness. A number of people asked for the slides, and I sent a PDF out right before Thanksgiving. I had the thought that this was a perfect chance to remind everyone about some of the struggles that the holidays can bring.

I discussed with my therapist this week some anxiety around the family time. She told me that this is a common time for everyone to have an increase in anxiety, especially those who struggle with their mental health. It is important to plan ahead and have some strategies for self-care.

As I drafted my email, I found a great article on the NAMI.org blog:

Many people can experience feelings of anxiety or depression during the holiday season. People who already live with a mental health condition should take extra care to tend to their overall health and wellness during this time.

Extra stress, unrealistic expectations or even sentimental memories that accompany the season can be a catalyst for the holiday blues. Some can be at risk for feelings of loneliness, sadness, fatigue, tension and a sense of loss.

Whatever your mental state, or that of those around you, this time of year is a great time for extra compassion and sensitivity. Not everyone loves to celebrate the holidays, but we all could use someone who cares for us.


🎥 Frozen II

With Grandpa and the oldest five kids


Looking forward to a nice holiday weekend with family. Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃


😂 Cal (2yo), as he picked up his dirty diaper: “Garbj. Garbj. Take it. Can I? Down.”

When I put him down, he ran to the garbage and threw the diaper away and came back. “‘Atch ‘ootball?” That’s hard to refuse, so we turned on the 49ers and watched until the next commercial.


🔗 Great retrospective format

I was intrigued by this article by Fiona Voss: My favorite way to run a retro:

The leader sets up the Trello board with four columns:

  • Celebrations
  • Gripes
  • Topics to discuss
  • Actions

Then everybody has 5-10 minutes to write Trello cards in the first three columns, working from their own laptops. You’re allowed to move a card somebody else wrote from Celebrations or Gripes to Topics to Discuss if you want to talk about it.

When all the cards are written, use Trello voting to vote on cards. When voting is finished, the leader sorts the cards by number of votes (descending).

One of my favorite aspects of this is how it facilitates different personalities and allows for everyone to have their voice heard. As a manager, often my biggest concern is that certain people may be marginalized and I am always looking for ways to improve our group communication. Whether the cause is unconscious bias, different thinking styles, or something else altogether, this sounds like a great approach to address the issue.

Fiona said this, talking about using lightning rounds to address an issue:

People who want to be heard, but have trouble jumping in to unstructured group discussions, get a turn to speak without having to fight for it.

Many people, developers in particular, think better when given a few quiet minutes on their own, and then the nudge to write out their thoughts. There are others who think better out loud. In a meeting, the latter group tends to overpower the former, and I love this simple approach to balance things out.

I look forward to trying this approach on my team. It is always an exciting challenge to pursue the delicate balance between too rigid structure and not enough structure to allow people to truly thrive.


🔗 Working with resistance

As I finished reading this article this morning, I said out loud, “That was beautiful!” And then I thought maybe I could share it so others might have that same experience. The article is from Zen Habits: Working with the Ebbs & Flows of Your Resistance. He points out that feeling resistance to new or good things is normal, but we can learn to work with it.

It can also get stronger. But it can’t maintain its strength for long. You can breathe, stay with it, wait it out. Bring curiosity to it. Give the feeling a little compassion and kindness.

The key is develop more mindfulness. Instead of shying away from hard thoughts or feelings, sink into them for a moment and get to know them better. Over time, as we become more comfortable with them, we can notice them and acknowledge the message they are sending us and them make our own choice about what to do.


I was all excited that Oregon lost but then I realized that we wanted them to be a 1-loss team coming in to the PAC-12 championship for Utah to beat them. Oh well. We’ll enjoy the bump in rank this week. Go Utes! 🏈


Great dad moment: watched chapter 3 of the Mandalorian with my teenage daughter. “Mandalorians are so much cooler than Jedi! They’re like a happy family cult.” 😂


💮 Promoting mental wellness

One of my most satisfying accomplishments lately was participating in a department meeting yesterday where we were able to spend half an hour discussing mental health. I wanted to pause and reflect on the journey to make that happen.


As I have written about before, the last year and a half has been significant in my own mental health journey. As I returned back to to work full-time at the beginning of this summer, following intensive treatment for my OCD, I found myself having many conversations around mental health. At the beginning of September, I sent the following email to my manager and our CIO:

As I have been more open with my mental health struggles, I have had a number of interesting conversations with people in IT about OCD and other mental health challenges. I wanted to suggest to you that we do something of an overview of mental health and related issues for all of IT. It would be great for people to know about some of the more common disorders and challenges, and what they mean, and how to support people who are working with those. I think there are a lot of misconceptions about things like bipolar, or OCD, or even ADD/ADHD.

I’m not trying to tell you what needs to be done, or how to do it, but I wanted to share the suggestion and see what you think. Thanks.

Ben

This email prompted a series of meetings, which resulted in my collaborating with our company wellness leader at O.C. Tanner, along with our newly-on-site behavioral therapist. In our September monthly IT meeting, we shared a primer on mental health and gave a teaser for a longer segment we planned the next month. Because I had initiated the conversations, I was invited to come up to the front of the room, but we ran out of time for me to say anything. A couple people commented after the meeting that they appreciated me being up there as the mental health mascot for IT.

As we prepared for the October meeting, we discovered that we had given our therapist the wrong date, and she had a conflict. So our wellness leader and I planned to take a few minutes to share our individual stories around mental health, and again provide a teaser for more to come in November. Ironically, we ran out of time for me to share again, so reprised my role as the IT mental health mascot.

Finally, in our November meeting, everything aligned. We were able to take half of the hour-long meeting with all of IT. I shared a short version of my story with mental health, and the bulk of the time was our behavioral therapist sharing about mental wellness. The content appeared to be extremely well received. You could have heard a pin drop while our therapist was sharing. After the meeting, I received messages from a number of people expressing gratitude for us making this subject more prominent and accessible.

One of the best side effects of this process for me has been the relationships that I have developed by being open. I have become close friends with our wellness leader, as well as our behavior therapist and have enjoyed working closely with them. The kinds of conversations that occur in the context of mental health lead to much deeper connections with people than most topics. So as I talk with people, I become close to them in a remarkably short time.

I have learned that all of us are affected by mental illnesses, whether directly or indirectly. The more we can do to increase awareness and decrease stigma around mental health, the more people will be able to get the help that they need.


💮 Had the chance to share about mental health awareness in an IT department meeting today; the culmination of three months of work. It was wonderful to have the conversation be more open and decrease the stigma around discussing it at work. 🎉


📖 📱 Comanche Moon

By Larry McMurtry


So grateful for a beautiful, uplifting view every time I leave work.

Fall leaves and blue sky