Posted on February 25th, 2009 by pruett32
I stumbled upon this article today: an incredible example of good sportsmanship displayed by high school players and their coaches. If only our professional and olympic athletes showed such character. I know there are a few examples of good character at the heights of sports, but so many seem to be so fixated on winning that they blur lines that should never be blurred. This article is an example of honoring the correct lines.
http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool/rise/basketball/boys/news/story?id=3914375
My hope is that our generation can embrace examples like these and strive to live lives of deep character. I firmly believe that performance will follow, and be sustainable if we put character first in our decision making and day to day behavior.
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Posted on January 5th, 2009 by pruett32
For the third year in a row, I’ve decided to track the number of emails I send and recieve at work. For context, I rarely delete emails, get very little spam, and commit to reading almost every email I receive (in 2008, I left about 60 emails unread).
Here are the final numbers for 2008:
Number of Emails Received in 2008: 12,517
Number of Emails Written in 2008: 3,383
Given an average of 200 workdays per year, this works out to about 63 messages received each day, and 17 messages written…
Here’s my stats from 2007 and 2006:
Number of Emails Received in 2007: 15,649
Number of Emails Written in 2007: 3,428
Number of Emails Received in 2006: 13,759
Number of Emails Written in 2006: 4,352
It will be interesting to watch as the data changes the next couple of years. Is the decline in emails sent each year a product of my learning to only send email when it is the best medium for the task? Or am I crafting emails in such a way that follow-up emails are required less frequently? Or is there some other environmental factor at play?
Regardless of the reasons that may have driven my email traffic down last year, I’m still reading and writing email as the primary tool in my day to day work.
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Posted on June 22nd, 2008 by pruett32
We spent the last several days in Washington state. We came up to see my wife’s cousin get married, which she did successfully, and we watched successfully. The wedding was outdoors and the setting was very pretty. The ground was still wet, so after a while things got a little muddy.
Isaac was hilarious. He was dancing and spinning and running around the whole time. Which means Kristen and I were too as we tried to keep up with him! He loved playing with all of his cousins throughout the weekend - and it was fun to see him interact with everyone.
We fly home today, and I’m certainly ready to be home. Family visits are fun, and this one was very nice, but home is still home.
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Posted on March 24th, 2008 by pruett32
People respond with loyalty to those who invest in them.
–John Maxwell
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Posted on January 10th, 2008 by pruett32
Demonstrate your confidence in your people by giving them the freedom to do the job you hired them to do. Be like jockey Willie Shoemaker. He’s the best in the business because he has the lightest touch on the reins. They say the horse never knows he’s there - unless he’s needed.
H. Mackay, Swim With the Sharks
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Posted on January 7th, 2008 by pruett32
It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them
Benjamin Franklin
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Posted on January 3rd, 2008 by pruett32
I started a tradition last year of assessing the amount of email traffic I had read and created at work over the past year. I’ve always rotated my email at the end of the year to archive the previous year’s significant and insignificant messages… but last year was the first time I’d really taken stock of the sheer volume of messages.
The numbers aren’t perfect - I delete a lot of email, and don’t keep junk mail. However, as I reviewed the results this year, I was amazed I had reduced the number of messages I sent while receiving significantly more email than the prior year.
Here’s my stats from 2007:
Number of Emails Received in 2007: 15,649
Number of Emails Written in 2007: 3,428
Given an average of 200 workdays per year, this works out to 78 messages received each day, and 17 messages written…
Compare this to my stats from 2006:
Number of Emails Received in 2006: 13,759
Number of Emails Written in 2006: 4,352
No wonder I’m tired at the end of the day!
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