We have figured a lot of things out, but once we get one thing figured out, we get excited at the feed store and buy chickens or a friend so kindly gives us some ducks. (Yes, really, our friend gave us our ducks and we instantly fell in love with them!)

Each new thing that comes along has its own challenges and rewards, but I think that the biggest reward for all of us is that we have been learning a lot and have new, big dreams for our future.  During this long quarantine we have spent so much time at home and in doing so have found what we really want in a home. Part of that is supplying ourselves and our kids with some of our own food.  

It didn’t all start right at the beginning of quarantine, it’s been a growing process, as most things are. 

Right before the state got shut down we went and had dinner and then stopped at the feed store for a few things.  Even though we didn’t plan on it, we came home with three new chicks.(Remember this tends to happen with us!) It was the start of spring and we were spending more and more time at home and outside.  We really started the garden as just something to do.  We’ve put together a few new gardens over the years, already had the wood to make some raised beds, so we thought it would be something fun for the kids to watch grow and would get us all outside together on a daily basis.  Starting small was our plan so we built one long 6×8 bed, one 2×2 for a potato box and a 4×4 for a few watermelon plants (it has plenty of room for the vines to go outside the bed.)  As we started planning what to put in the long 6×8 bed, we quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be enough room for all we wanted to plant, so along came another 6×8 bed.  All of the veggies got planted (more on what we planted to come) and I decided it would be really fun to have a flower cutting garden.  Mila is always picking flowers from the yard and who doesn’t love fresh cut flowers around their home?!  The veggies started producing and we started canning and really seeing if we put in the work and time we could have a pretty good yield.  

Living on two acres of land really provides us with a lot of opportunities and we really hope that we can build on what we have started.  James and I have always loved writing and sharing our experiences with others, so as we embark on our new projects we thought now would be a great time to start doing just that. 

If you have read our blogs in the past welcome back and if you are a first time visitor we hope you find something that is helpful or at least entertaining. 

Can chickens eat beans?

It really is a good question, a boring one… but deep down I think, chickens are like feathered pigs – they will eat anything right?  Not true.  Some foods are not good for chickens, but beans are another story.

As long as you are cooking the beans, you are good to go – and just like anything, if they are a treat – go for it.  Don’t just buy 9Million beans and feed your chickens with them, it will not be good (it’ll give them the farts… jk).  An occasional treat of cooked pinto beans is just fine.

So there you have it – can you feed chickens pinto beans? Yes.

These days, it is hard to find leaders that are NOT leading by EQ example. In fact, most successful organizations have emotionally-intelligent-savvy teammates throughout their team. Anyone that has at least read one book, or watched a YouTube video on emotional intelligence can tell you that effective emotional intelligence in a team must come from all angles.

Job interviews are crammed with gauges of EQ, whether the interviewer knows it or not. A quick Google search will net 427,000+ results of psychometric testing for hiring purposes – likely up a million percent from 10 years ago; (don’t fact check me there).

So why the sudden fascination about emotional quotient? Why is an EQ leader so important? What traits should a true emotionally intelligent leader possess?

I have narrowed it down; every emotionally intelligent leader possesses these 3 traits.

The ability to positively influence when no one is looking (and when they are).

I have been around a lot of bosses in my life, but only a few leaders. 10 years ago, someone would have said, “Bosses, leaders… same thing.” With everyone having some form of emotional intelligence knowledge these days (even if you didn’t have a proper name for it, until today), it would be easy for us all to pinpoint the first leader we were exposed to that made an impact on our careers.

The leaders that made the positive influence in my career, or life for that matter, have been those that took the time to understand and eventually influence those around them when no one else was looking. It is easy to showboat and display your positive influence in team meetings or in a group email – but how many reading this have taken the time to be the same person behind closed doors?

Emotional intelligence has a lot to do with your influence on and off “the field”. I have made plenty of mistakes when no one was looking – but being able to cover them up before they became public is a skill we all strive to master, right? So why be the positive influence when behind closed doors?

Simple. If you truly want to make an impact, you must believe and understand your influence when it is expected and unexpected. If you do not start living the brand when those around you are not glued to your hip, you never will. The image you portray does not build itself only during work hours, it accumulates over time. That time runs from sun-up to sun-down… like it or not.

Stop gossiping and start understanding the issues.

Office politics will never die. The water cooler will be replaced by a soda machine, the soda machine replaced by a tea station and so on. People will talk. Negativity will continue to fester without fully understanding issues and working through them with colleagues & leaders.

The real question, will you be part of it or help to stymy it? This is a tough one.

Part of fitting in at a new place, or moving up sometimes means getting in the middle of a mudslinging fest and not knowing whose side to really take. All of us have been there, right?

“So-and-so is doing what they always do… I’m done here.”

“How can I do my job when they can just run amuck?”

These are the times that a real emotionally intelligent leader shines. We can all talk a big game and say we wouldn’t be a part of it – I have fallen into it a few times myself before. Those special leaders will sit back and digest because what they see are opportunities for growth as a team. To fix the problem, to help be the soundboard – you must first understand the issues at hand. If you dive into the mud pit and start slinging – you are not a leader.

Real EQ Leaders do not preach, they teach.

Two guys walk into a bar, a preacher & a teacher… sounds like a good intro to a joke eh? People who preach EQ are usually too busy preaching, instead of actually doing it. Sad but true. They read one book about emotional intelligence and now they are an expert, or perhaps they sat in on a speaker at the latest conference or watched a 20-minute TED talk about it. Whatever the case, they now want to run around the office and spew buzzwords while speaking out both sides of their mouth (usually they don’t know it).

Leaders that understand what emotional intelligence is about are instead spending their time learning people, learning what makes them tick, learning how to influence those people, empowering those people to influence those around them. It is a meta-game for sure. You can reach far more people by understanding one person fully and allowing them to influence others – than standing at a podium and preaching the gospel of EQ.

“We will be reading today from the first book of Daniel Coleman, Chapter 3. Thou shalt not forsaken those around you by spewing the word.”

Sorry – I had to. The irony here is that a lot of preachers are emotionally intelligent people, their influence is broad – but the difference is their body of knowledge of course. If the leader preaching EQ had spent the time and effort in learning the content that the actual preacher did… they wouldn’t be up there preaching in the first place.

Emotional intelligence is a personal thing. It is taking information from relationships and using it to modify and tailor your approach to those particular individuals. It is starting over with the next person and the next. It is building a network of trust that feeds on itself until an entire infrastructure is created that is self-managing.

It isn’t yelling from a podium until everyone “hears it” and forcing them to understand.

What is the takeaway?

Simple. Do you want to make an impact? Be an emotionally intelligent leader for your company – make some changes. Live it. Take these three traits as a starting point to build around. Are there more? Sure. Are these perfect? Of course, I wrote them. On a serious note, EQ is an amoeba, changing shape and ever-growing as we learn more and modify our approach… it grows and morphs.

If you take these three points/tips and apply them immediately – you will begin to grow as a leader and influence those around you more and more. We are all born with emotional intelligence, it is up to us to harness and develop it.

On Sunday we hosted a Super Bowl party at our house and we had decided to just have “snacky” things. This would have been perfect if we would have just stuck to chips & dip – but quickly we turned it into a full menu: sliders (two kinds), pepperoni & mozzarella braided bread, a bucket of guacamole, taquitos, queso, meat & cheese plate, rum cake, chocolate cake, chips & dip and jalapeno popper dip w/ baguets.

Glad we kept it “snacky”.

So one of our contributions was a bacon wrapped cheeseburger that was a hit.  So here is a quick walk thru of our method to this perfect slider.

Step 1… beer.  As always.  Beers and more beers.  Just kidding.  Kinda.

Seriously – first you need to gather ingredients – let me list:

• 2 lbs of 80/20 hamburger meat (or turkey, bison – whatever floats your boat)
• 1 egg
• 1 pack of bacon (what does that come in – a pound?)
• cheese slices (your choice)
• Hawaiin Rolls (we went with the jalapeno version)
• butter (maybe half a stick)
• breadcrumbs
• Seasonings: garlic powder, salt, pepper, onion powder, hamburger seasoning (optional – hell all of this is optional – season it however you want)
• Beer (seriously, drink beer)
• Cast Iron Skillet (or two, and it’s not really an ingredient – but you get the idea)

Once you have gathered all your goods – let’s get to marrying these things together.

First thing first, put your beef in a bowl and throw an egg & breadcrumbs in there and work that all equally.  I wish I could tell you how much of each thing – but honestly I’m an eyeball-er.  I season by look, smell, and taste.

After working that over for a while – it’s time to start making some patties.  Now, remember these are sliders, not big ass burgers.  Keep it reasonable – but also remember there will be shrink’age.  Make a ball about this size:

Once you have made a good sized ball, take and wrap that bad boy with the bacon.  Try not to drool on it while doing so.

I cut the bacon in half, then with the thicker side of the bacon I was able to wrap most of the meatballs just once and it was good enough for me. With the Thinner pieces I would double wrap (like above).  Either way, it’s bacon – its burger – can’t go wrong with a bit more.

Once each one was wrapped I placed it in my cast iron skillet.  I am a big cast iron fan, mine is good and seasoned by now – so no need to grease or anything (plus its about to get filled with bacon & butter… so chill out.  I just filled each one like so:

Looking good, but we are only half way there.  Now if you wanted to cook these inside on the stove top, great – go for it… but I’m a man and men cook on grills.  So I cranked up the gas grill to 400 and I put these meaty sliders on the grill.  It didn’t take long to get things sizzling.  Once the skillets were good and hot, I added the butter to each pan.  This is probably overkill – but it was for the Super Bowl… no such thing as overkill.  Here is a tasty look of the patties on the grill.

Mouth watering?  mmmmMmmmm mine is.

Let’s see the final product eh?

Tasty little bugger – I would say w/ the cheese add, a lil bit of mustard – tasty-tasty.  Would recommend. They were also very awesome leftovers.  If you are looking for a tasty slider for your next party or just because (Valentines for your man?) – try these Perfect Bacon Cheeseburger Sliders out.  They are $.  Now here is a picture of us on the patio, enjoying the best Super Bowl of all time.

My son is a teacher. He taught me how to change diapers, he taught me how to lead by example, he taught me how to Google. Both my wife & I are constant students with this guy.

But he also taught me how to dream again.

When you get to a solid working age (when you have given up the dream to be an astronaut or run a shrimping boat) and you settle into your “routine” it is easy to give up on a few things in life without even knowing what’s going on.

“I have a good job; the pay is good and I’m happy.” goes through your head daily and silently your dream dies. The extremes are referenced above, but maybe your dream was to not go to the moon, as much as work with your hands or be an artist of some sort. Maybe it wasn’t to be “happy” because your job was “good” and the pay was “good” – but instead, you wanted to be happy first and be paid for it and consider it “good” because of the fact you were happy. That sounds convoluted, doesn’t it?

Let me do my best to clear this up.

You have heard the catchy phrases or the #MotivationMonday posts on whatever social media source you frequent about “love what you do, do what you love” or something to that effect. In the real world, often, you end up doing what pays your bills – then you find that it makes you happy enough. Little do you realize, this is when the astronaut dies, chefs become insurance adjusters and carpenters become QA Managers. No offense to insurance adjusters or QA Managers. For those of you that dreamed as a kid to be an insurance adjuster or QA Manager – my apologies, this is my story… when you write yours, you point the finger at Marketing Directors and CIOs.

Where am I going with this?

My son hasn’t been bitten by the reality bug, and I can only hope he never does. He has no bills to pay at this moment, so when you ask him what he wants to be when he grows up – his answer remains consistent and quick in his response time…

“I want to be an astronaut-chef-fireman-ninja-T-Rex.”

The first few times this answer came out of his mouth, I was quick to respond with “no son, you can’t be a T-Rex” or “Just pick one. That is not the point of this exercise”. I am not asking for your future resume or what is your favorite type of dinosaur. He obviously doesn’t get it.

Later down the road, his answer would make me laugh and my wife and I would giggle when he uttered the “T-Rex” part and I would make some comment about ‘why he didn’t want to be a Triceratops’ and we would have dialogue back and forth in jest.

Fast forward now to a different time. In fact, this time of life he is 5 – I am 36 and we both have played this game before, so we know the rules. “What do you want to be when you grow up son?” I ask. “An astronaut-chef-fireman-ninja-T-Rex.” he replies.

And for the first time, it hits me… he CAN be anything he wants to be. And he should.

Isn’t that what they tell us our whole life? This is America, is it not?! I have the God-given right to grow and dream to be anything I please – so why suddenly am I not?

What if my son has it all figured out and I am the one that doesn’t? At the time, I’m frequenting my job of almost 10 years, a job that is “good”, a job that the pay is “good” and I ask myself no questions of what I want to be when I grow up. I am a grown up and I have been in the workforce now for over two decades – I know this answer… “I want a stable job, with good benefits that makes me happy.”

There that is again… I was “happy” in my job. There were days I loved it, more days that I hated it – but the money was too good to walk away from. My son, on the other hand, didn’t care to be a CIO when he grew up – remember his answer… it was very clear…

An astronaut-chef-fireman-ninja-T-Rex (said with vigor, with a pronounced passion… with conviction).

I wanted to be an astronaut-chef-fireman-ninja-T-Rex. Badly.

Not when I grow up but instead here I sat as an adult – wishing I was that awful string of characters. My son made me believe that I could be a dinosaur, I had quit telling him that was an insane thought for a while now. If he wanted to be a dinosaur when he grew up, find a way – make it happen. Who am I to tell you that you cannot do it. I wish someone would remind me that every morning – that my dreams were still valid and to not give up…

I did have someone there telling me and he was a 6-year-old.

So, at the age of 36, I made a choice to keep my eyes wide open. To quit settling for “good” and go after the real “happy”. I chose to channel everything I had to chase my dream to be a dinosaur.

One night soon-there-after, while reading our small-town paper (that is roughly 5-10 pages depending on the day) – I found a classified ad for my dinosaur. You see, my dinosaur had always been Design/Marketing – but instead my life as a CIO had me settled into the beforementioned “good” category. I didn’t hate my job, but I didn’t love it. I had created long-lasting relationships along the way with so many clients, employees and industry folks – it would be hard to walk away from it all. All I could think about was that I want to be an astronaut-chef-fireman-ninja-T-Rex.

I owed it to my son to go after it, so I did.

So, with no real clue what I was doing – I applied to be a dinosaur.

A month later, I was Director of Marketing for a company and if you asked me (or my son), I am now a T-Rex. I can’t speak for everyone; some people fall into jobs that later become their passion – that is the funny thing about life. Some people inherit jobs that later become their passions. I had the unique opportunity to enjoy a career and excel in a company, leave that company – and do something I truly love.

I say all of that to say this…

My son doesn’t know what he will be when he grows up, any more than I did (or you for that matter). He might grow up to be a YouTuber (will that be a thing still?), or an actor or an illustrator – and in the process, be an astronaut-chef-fireman-ninja-T-Rex as he described as a child. I will not crush his dreams and tell him he is crazy. I will tell him to go be that dinosaur, just like he told me.