Everything's bigger here

"Everything is bigger in Texas"~ Jeff Hutchins, 1998

An old high school swim teammate used to tell us that during practices on an almost weekly basis, and I remember thinking "Whatever". At the time, I thought it was a manhood deal, and part of the constant one-upsmanship process of 17 yr old boys. After living in Austin for almost two weeks now, I can see his point. Everything is supersized out here, examples being the UT football stadium, food, cowboy boots, cars, my neighbor's boobs, egos, the shopping centers...it's rather ridiculous.

But is bigger necessarily better? One can look at history and find plenty of examples where this is true, from the upward scaling of companies to attack size-biased markets to the recent UFC 100 title fight where the much larger Brock Lesnar took down Frank Mir. However,history is also rife with examples of times where diversity and flexibility were more important then flexibility, from smaller operationally efficient farm communities all the way to Michael Phelps outracing competitors who are bigger and stronger then he is. The answer, as it usually is, appears to lie somewhere in the middle, where there's a optimal combination of size and flexibility. The utilization at this point is such that you can get the best returns on investment in both departments without becoming detrimentally large or too flexible.

The point? As I currently sit under the concrete behemoth that is the UT stadium, I realize more and more that it doesn't matter how big you are (as a company or physically), what's in your wallet, or how many credentials you have on the wall. Conversely, there's not much value in becoming a free-spirited hippie and running around the world with no ties or growth plans either. I won't pretend that I know the optimal balance between the two, but that's what life's about...figuring out the balance and making it work for you. This whole post may be a hallucination brought on by the 110 degree, 95% humidity here in Austin, but I doubt it.

I wanna be a cowboy...I think

The big news around here is that I'm heading to Texas. I've accepted a job, and am excited to be heading out to Austin soon to lead a Green Energy project. This has everything I want in an adventure, namely;

1. An excellent position within a growing company
2. The latitude to make decisions and help grow a company
3. Working with my mentor
4. A strange new world, filled with cowboy hats and boots
5. Bulls....lots and lots of bulls

I would like to say this is going to be boring, but the combo of those 5 things, and a fully loaded IPOD ought to make this a great experience. Did I also mention I'm moving to the South in two weeks?

Finding yourself....at a funeral

At 10:47 am today I found myself carrying a dead body into a church in Northern LA. Seeing as I'm not a mobster or a mortician, one wonders why exactly I would be in that position (aside from the attention grabbing headline). Truth is, I was attending the funeral of a friend's father, was nabbed by a priest because I'm " a strong young man" (at least I think that's what he mumbled), and was carrying a casket up into the church. Being 2 feet away from the body, then listening to the subsequent eulogy got me thinking about life though, and the opportunities and adventures it affords.

(This is where 10% of the audience thinks, "Geez, Ryan, quit analyzing it. You're only 27, and a lousy philosopher at that." The other 90% quit reading when I mentioned I was carrying a dead body into church. If you've made it this far, kudos.)

In the movie "Dead Poets Society", one of the opening scenes is Robin Williams showing his class pictures of previous graduating classes from 50 years previous, and urging his students to "Carpe Diem", or sieze the day as they are few. A true statement, given the fact that life goes by in a blink, and you may find yourself suddenly approaching an age milestone wondering what the hell should you do with your life. It really is that simple, Williams-esque statement, as if you squeeze as much as you can out of every day, you'll probably lose some sleep, and little else as you end up where you're supposed to be.

Ironic that it took a funeral to remind me of that life fact.

Out on a limb (as usual)

We've been discussing over the past few weeks, both at church and elsewhere, how important the skill of listening is. Whether its a girlfriend/boyfriend, teammate, mentor, or God, the emphasis is on what they're saying and doing...not on our own interpretation. With that in mind, this past week I turned down a job as a Sales Mgr in Northern LA. In this economy, most people would think I was crazy, but the truth is it wasn't what I'm supposed to do. When I first moved out to CA, I took a position that was absolutely the wrong choice ( I chose money over cultural fit...story for another time) and kept trying to make it work, but it ended very VERY poorly. I found myself in the same situation Monday, sitting there about to take a job for money...yet this little voice went "Don't. " I thought my unease was just nerves and tried to squash it, but that little voice kept coming back each time with the same message. With this in mind, I told the rather shocked rep on Tuesday I wouldn't be accepting the position, and would be returning to the job market to continue my now 8 month search. It's not that it wasn't a good position, or the people were nasty, it just wasn't what I'm supposed to do for the next few years. No one said this listening thing was easy, but I'm assuming it's like anything else where the more you practice, the better you are.

Unless of course it's backstroke. Never got the hang of that (as 4 swim coaches can testify)