Around the fire pit

 

My sister-in-law Chris managed to take this photo in the dark with a flash on an iPhone camera. I really like the look of it. That's me on the far right talking to my son Jack.

I don't have the numbers to back this up, but it seems to me the popularity of the fire pit as a suburban backyard accessory has risen exponentially in the last, say, 15 to 20 years.

People sometimes build them right into their patios or, as in our case, just dig a hole and ring it with bricks. Either way, it becomes the focal point of almost any warm-weather gathering.

Terry and my niece Shelby built our pit, and while at first I complained about it as yet another thing in the yard I have to mow around, I must admit it has been a welcome addition.

We probably have something like 10 or 12 fires each spring and summer. Maybe it's more, maybe it's less, I don't know. I don't keep an exact count.

But I know that whenever there's a fire and our kids and significant others are available to join us, it's a guaranteed good time.

We sit and talk, most of us with our beverage of choice in hand. And that's all there is to it. You just relax.

I can get a fire started, but not as well as Terry, who is a superior fire starter AND fire feeder. Elissa's boyfriend Mark was an Eagle scout, and while he claims he was terrible at fires during his scouting days, he builds what can only be deemed a top-notch fire, at least by our standards.

My brother-in-law Dave built what is probably the biggest fire ever in our pit simply by piling on more logs.

We still have a sizeable wood pile, thanks to the elimination of 14 or so trees from our backyard a few summers ago. There are still many fires to go before we have to restock it.

I'm not always a "simple pleasures" kind of guy, but the fire pit has made me one in at least one regard.

Though, seriously, I hate having my straight-line momentum interrupted by obstacles when I'm cutting the grass.

Should you spend more time getting even better at the things at which you already excel, or trying to improve the things at which you're not naturally good?

One of the best bosses I've ever had (and I've had some very, very good ones) was Cindy, who was originally my colleague at Dix & Eaton before becoming my manager at The Cleveland Foundation. She very deftly balanced being instructive and inspirational with being constructively critical.

If you've ever managed people, you know that's often not as easy as it looks.

I used to work on a variety of print pieces at the foundation, mostly newsletters and the like but occasionally larger and fancier publications. It requires a range of skills to put something like that together, and the one area where I never had any problem was writing copy. In general, I'm pretty good at that and I like doing it.

Where I wasn't especially good was reviewing and providing feedback on the design and layout. A graphic designer would send us a draft, and in most cases I would look at it and say, "That's great!"

And I meant it. I rarely had any changes to the look and feel of a given piece, partly because I am no designer and, honestly, any piece of semi-professional design is impressive to me.

Cindy, however, always had feedback for designers, and it was inevitably helpful feedback. She had an eye for improving communication by maximizing the way it was packaged, and I envied her for it.

One time I told her I would try to develop a more critical eye for evaluating graphic design, and her response was insightful.

She told me, "That's fine, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. You're only going to get so good at it, and your time is probably better spent improving the things you're good at and making an even bigger impact with those."

Which makes sense, I suppose. Your margin for improvement when it comes to a given task or skill may be somewhat limited to begin with, and it's even more limited when you're (a) not already good at it, and/or (b) don't particularly enjoy it in the first place.

So in answer to the question in the headline, I'm not saying you shouldn't try to shore up the areas where you're lacking and which might be beneficial for you to improve. But don't bang your head against the wall needlessly. You can probably make a bigger contribution (whether it's at home or work or wherever) going from good to great with the stuff you already enjoy doing.

All of which is why I don't plan to practice my carpentry skills any time soon because, let's be honest, tools and I aren't ever going to really get along with each other.

I've carried these nine books with me from job to job for the last 20 years

It can sound pretentious to call your job a "craft," but I do consider the writing portion of my vocation to be just that.

Whatever your personal craft may be, you should never stop trying to get better at it. I plan to be working toward clearer, more concise writing up until the day I die (well, maybe I'll take that day off...but not the day before).

There was a time when it was imperative for writers to keep a set of reference books at their desk. A dictionary and thesaurus were de rigueur, of course, but depending on the focus of your writing, there were others on the required reading list.

One was a stylebook, such as the Associated Press Stylebook pictured here. Stylebooks tell you everything from whether to hyphenate certain words to how you abbreviate the states to which nouns are capitalized and which are not. And everything in between.

You'll also find a book of quotations on my shelf, as well as Plotnik's "The Elements of Editing" and the densely populated "Macmillan Handbook of English," 1960 edition.

Here's the thing: These books, or at least most of the information they contain, can be found online -- in most cases quite easily. Technically, I don't need the physical books whenever I have easy access to Google.

But I keep them for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I still love the feeling of cracking open a book to get to whatever I'm looking for (just as I still love reading an actual newspaper). They have traveled with me from workplace to workplace over the past two decades, starting at the Cleveland Clinic and moving on to Dix & Eaton, The Cleveland Foundation, OneCommunity, Vitamix, and now Goodyear.

There are memories wrapped up in these books. A few I associate with particular work projects, maybe a script or press release of which I was proud. Others take me back to my newspaper days, when the whole idea of writing for money was new and exciting, and I wanted so badly to be good at it.

There's also this: As much as I love and embrace technology, I also believe books hearken back to a time when the written word was more revered and the library card catalog meant something. They represent a pathway to knowledge and experiences otherwise unattainable for most of us, even online.

Books are, in my mind, the genteel medium. And at age 51, I'm just old enough to appreciate that.

(By the way, the slim brown volume tucked between the AP Stylebook and the Macmillan Handbook is "The Word: An Associated Press Guide to Good News Writing." So good. Oh man, so good.)

You can't fake passion

OK, I'll wait a moment while you make whatever jokes popped into your head when you read that headline...

<PAUSE>

I am of course talking about the G-rated passions in your life, whether it's a hobby, a charity, or the focus of this post, your job.

One of the advantages of having worked in so many different places since the early 90s is that I have gained a wide perspective on what makes a great workplace.

The perks are always nice, of course, and I have nothing against those employers who install slides, ping pong tables, gaming consoles, etc. in their office. And hey, no one is going to complain when a bonus check shows up on payday.

But as cliché as it sounds, the best workplaces are the ones with the best people. And more to the point, people who love what they're doing and the organization for which they're doing it.

It is an absolute struggle to work in a place where employees are ambivalent about their jobs. No matter how conscientious you are, you'll feel that lack of energy personally, and it will undoubtedly affect your performance.

One of the first things I noticed about Goodyear is that people there love the company and feel a strong loyalty toward the brand. This may be attributable to the fact that so many of them have worked there for 20, 30 or even 40 years. There are lots of long-timers at the Home of the Winged Foot, and their personal identities are often wrapped up in Goodyear's identity.

In many ways, the same was true when I was at Vitamix. It's a family-owned company that has much to recommend it as an employer, and people are justly proud of the organization and its products.

This is especially helpful as a corporate communicator. When someone loves what they do and you talk with them about it for, say, a company video or intranet article, it's immediately obvious. It's not the kind of thing you can pretend.

If you're not truly all in, I can tell within 10 seconds. And the resulting communication is going to reflect that, no matter how much I try to pretty it up.

I haven't been at Goodyear long enough to have developed that connection myself, but I do hope it happens.

The problem is that, when it does, this blog will no longer be called 5 Kids, 1 Wife, but probably something like "4 Tires, 1 Car."

And nobody really wants to see that.

I would like more coffee mugs, but I don't have any place to put them

When I started drinking coffee 10 years ago, there were certain things about the habit of which I was unaware.

Like the variances in coffee quality, depending on where you get it. I have pretty low standards, but even I can tell the difference among French press, restaurant, and weak Mr. Coffee brews.

Or the fact that powdered creamer is nasty and should be illegal. I could not have known that until I tried it.

There is also this: I like having a large collection of coffee mugs. I have three at home that I guess are "mine," though we have so many total mugs in our house that the hooks behind the kitchen sink are all occupied and the cupboards probably can't hold any more.

I also have three mugs at work, though one is my everyday go-to (pictured above), while the Donkey Kong and Cleveland State University School of Communications mugs are there more for display and to serve as back-ups than anything else.

So, as gifts go, I suppose coffee mugs are a lot like ties: I can always find a use for them, but I'm running out of places to put them.

Should you be looking for something to give me, I still say you can't go wrong with cash. Or a Starbucks gift card. Unlike coffee mugs, both are easily stored.

I would have enjoyed cruising more if there hadn't been a big boat involved

 

A couple of years ago, Terry and I went on the first (and so far only) cruise of our lives. It was an Australian cruise, and the places we visited, things we saw, and people we met really made it the trip of a lifetime.

The one problem we both had, though, was a fairly significant one: We got seasick. The constant motion of the MS Noordam was such that we spent most of the first night and all of the first full day of the voyage in our cabin feeling less than stellar.

We eventually found some relief when a visit to a Tasmanian pharmacy introduced us to TravaCalm, a motion sickness medicine that definitely helped. We also chewed ginger gum, and Terry wore a pressure point bracelet that further stabilized the situation.

Speaking for myself, though, I can say that while things got better, I never fully shook that feeling of dizziness and slight nausea.

Granted, the Bass Strait between Tasmania and the Australian mainland had rougher water than you're likely to encounter in, say, the Caribbean. But still...I'm not sure I want to try the cruise thing again any time soon.

I preferred our dry-land stops to our full days at sea, that's for certain.

I envy the folks I refer to as "Cruise People," who structure their vacations around cruises. They love the cruise life and never seem to feel even a hint of seasickness.

Given that I have to take Dramamine even upon entering an amusement park, I'm guessing I'll never join their ranks.

Overcoming negative self-talk in your life

We are dipping back into Jenn's Big Book of Wisdom for today's post, referring to my Weight Watchers leader Jenn. She does not get paid enough to serve as the fount of all knowledge in my life, but these days she fills that role anyway. God bless her.

At a recent Saturday morning meeting, Jenn talked about the the voice we often hear inside our heads that is self-critical and negative. It is counterproductive to everything each of us tries to achieve in our wellness journeys, yet we often yield to it.

It's the voice that tells you, for example, that there's no way you're going to lose the weight you need, and even if you do, it will be impossible to keep off.

It's the voice that tells you you're a bad parent and are screwing up your kids.

It's the voice that tells you you don't deserve the good things you have in your life.

It's the voice that lies, and its effects can be devastating.

I am very much a self-critical person, and I've always seen this as a positive trait. I figure that if you're constantly monitoring everything you're doing wrong and addressing it, you will inevitably be a better person.

And of course there's something to be said for continuous self-improvement. I'm not saying you shouldn't always strive to up your game in the areas of life that really count, because you should.

But there's a very fine line between constructive self-criticism and self-loathing, and sometimes we cross it without even knowing.

At the risk of sounding new age-y and maybe a bit more touchy feeling than I'm comfortable with, your main battle is probably not with living a healthy lifestyle or becoming a better spouse/parent/friend. Your main battle is likely to be loving yourself.

My guess is that some people have healthier attitudes in this regard than others, but it's something we should all keep in mind.

Don't get complacent, but understand that you're worth a lot more to way more people than you probably realize.