The Second Act

I have always been interested in the battlefield stories from Gettysburg… So many decisions that were made for good and bad that had profound outcomes on the future of the country.  The account of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the 20th Maine on Little Round Top is the one that has fascinated me. The left flank. He was ordered to Hold under all circumstances…to the last…  Late in the afternoon of July 2, 1863, on a boulder-strewn hillside in southern Pennsylvania, Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain dashed headlong into history, leading his 20th Maine Regiment in perhaps the most famous counterattack of the Civil War. The regiment’s sudden, desperate bayonet charge blunted the Confederate assault on Little Round Top and has been credited with saving Major General George Gordon Meade’s Army of the Potomac, winning the Battle of Gettysburg and setting the South on a long, irreversible path to defeat. (Read more here  https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/defens...

Recently I was watching the pro football documentary series "Hard Knocks" and in the final episode of the season with The New York Giants, the show covered how the General Manager does professional evaluations with his staff each season.  (See video below) It was fascinating because you can see how an organization who's main mission in the big scheme of life is to win football games, operates with such intentionality when comes to taking care of the staff...  Checking in, encouraging specific skills and talents, helping individuals improve in their work and lives... Development ...  I think it’s this simple intentionality that employees and staff long for in their organizations… The times I have thrived on staff teams that I was a part, it was because my supervisor was intentional about this and did the work leading the conversation with intentional questions and accountability and specific encouragement… As I have conversations with young adults getting their first jobs,...

 I turn 45 years young this year and there is something about it that just feels different. I used to think 40 was a defining birthday but at 45 it really seems that it is a hinge point in life, that the next chapters are going to be dramatically different.   Some of the events of the past year have set the table for a very distinctive change…I have two kids in high school now…I have been married 21 years…I have had 15 different places of employment since graduating college (part time and full time)…I was fired from a job this year and I have to start all over…(more on that in a future post)…I find that I agree with Dave Matthews when he said when he got older he “gave less of a __ about anything, and at the same time more of a __ about everything”.  A season of paradox is forming.  There is this brief intermission period to think about what’s to come next, to reflect on what’s been done in the first act and hopefully not repeat mistakes but celebrate the victor...