Hey there, hi there and hello there to one and all. A special happy Memorial Day to all of the men and women out there that have protected our borders near and far!! Isn't it a great feeling when Monday feels like a Sunday ... ahh. The countdown is on for our trip back home to Iowa, which this guy is excited for. So excited, that I jumped out of a tree into the Flint River in a fit of joy.
I picked up another mentee this week as well at work, a young professional looking to move up in the IT department with a great eye for innovation and a good bit of ambition. Then had a couple good classes with Finance and Strategery up at Emory. Another meeting with Barbara at the Literacy Alliance helped to get on paper all the great things we have going on with that organization and then Thursday we got back together with the Volunteer Center group at the United Way. Every week presents some great opportunities to make a difference, what a great feeling.
So many valuable lessons learned at work this week. Like how important it is to give your team the credit for the work that is done and the happiness they get when they're recognized. 
Or, making sure you're there when team members have questions to make sure they're on the right path. As long as your day is filled with more good than bad, then it's a good day. We're almost done with our book club on Precision Leadership too ... only a couple more weeks and then I go for my PL certification, yahoo! O, and I almost forgot that I had the chance to help Aflac's Fortune's 100 Best Companies to work for submission by shooting a video with some folks earlier this week, pretty interesting and fun indeed.
Or, making sure you're there when team members have questions to make sure they're on the right path. As long as your day is filled with more good than bad, then it's a good day. We're almost done with our book club on Precision Leadership too ... only a couple more weeks and then I go for my PL certification, yahoo! O, and I almost forgot that I had the chance to help Aflac's Fortune's 100 Best Companies to work for submission by shooting a video with some folks earlier this week, pretty interesting and fun indeed.
O yes, and a wonderful extended weekend was greatly appreciated hanging out with Jenny and Caden. Some domination of Monopoly was had on Friday followed by a couple of very relaxing days of homework ... love me some financial analysis:) Best day was had today though when a group of 9 of us headed up to Thomaston, GA for a day on the Flint River. It was an amazing experience to spend six hours or so floating for ten miles with good friends. We jumped off ropes in trees, rocks and even had a couple flip their canoe ... twice. Minimal sun burns and PB&js made for a great end of the weekend indeed.
Can't wait to finish up the week back home, looking forward to seeing all the great family and friends back home. Hope you all have fantacular week!
This past week things have begun to pick up again at Aflac especially with bike to work day on Friday. Seven miles in 26 minutesish ... great good time indeed. O yes, I was again asked to prove the value of the team. A monthly thing this has become, but hopefully after this last one, we have proven ourself for a while. Of all the projects we drive, and that's between 3-5 at any one time, our team drives value of the company in excess of $5,000,000 ... yup, over $750K per 6 people on the team. Made me feel pretty good to pass that along to the leadership team:) One of the big things I'll be working on over the next few weeks is working towards my certification as a Precision Leader. We have been focusing on this concept of precision leadership for some time now, which is basically the constant recognition of your people ... or, the right thing to do:) The exercises, journaling and tracking will all be a part of the presentation ... should be fun! I also picked up another mentee that I meet with this week, hope I can help him out too.
Last week Jenny and I started the weekend off right with date night downtown for dinner then off to the RiverCenter for the play Chicago ... which was fantacular! Saturday we got back on the workout track on a run with Caden, made a delicious dinner and went to watch the new Robin Hood movie. Russell Crowe gave an amazing performance and the movie exceeded my expectations, two thumbs up indeed! Today we spent heading to church, laying by the pool and going for a bike ride with friends. Two flat tires later, we finished out the weekend:)
Emory started back up this week with Managerial Finance and Strategic Management. This summer is going to be full of reading and financial analysis, yay! O, if you ever win the lottery and are trying to determine whether to take the lump sum or payments, let me know and I can help out;) I am really looking forward to my strategic management course though, the professor came in and was able to name almost every one of the 50 students in class minus four guys ... very impressive. Should be a fun summer indeed.
I will have to say that it has been some time since my last post and so many amazing things have happened!! We'll start with work I suppose since I've only worked a weekish in the last three, amazing I know. I think it's been the quiet before the storm at work where everything is going quite normally and I've had lots of time to catch up, chat with the team and start preparing for 2011 business planning ... which appears to be here earlier this year than last:) Whilst I was in China, I did miss Employee Appreciation Week (EAW) which I heard was an absolute blast. They had a high school theme this year, so many of us submitted our pictures for the Aflac School of Quack yearbook. 
Additionally, we did a company wide superlative vote for Mr./Mrs. Aflac, Most Studious, Most School Spirit, etc and I felt very honored to be named the Most Fun along with my buddy Rachel McCallister ... pretty funny if you ask me. Additionally, when we came back from New Orleans after our first flash mob, I thought it'd be a great idea to do one at EAW, so I asked the man in charge and he said yes. The catch was, I had to train all of the employees knowing I wasn't going to be able to be there ... sounded like a great challenge. 
O yes, and no executives at the company were to know since it was a surprise to them ... check it out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY4hAnFxNH4).
That's how many people that are in China, in the same amount of space that we have 300 million ... that's a lot of man/woman power to work off of:) Instead of telling you every single detail though, of course I decided to put together a video for your viewing pleasure. The highlights included the Great Wall in Beijing, the Bund and World Expo in Shanghai to include Jason and Meg getting engaged at the top of the TV Tower ... ahhh. After visiting the marketplace for some deals, an overnight train ride back to Beijing brought us to the end of our trip in the Forbidden City. For some more pictures and videos, check it out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx1vw9rdKzU).
Don't know if I could fit much more in over the next couple of weeks, but I'll probably give it the ol' college try. It was nice to have a relaxing weekend with Jenny and the pooch, but class starts back up tomorrow night and the madness will continue:) I hope you all have a fantacular week!
