Turning 40 - A New Chapter

Today I turn 40 years old. It’s a moment for reflection. The last decade of my life has been dominated by a single question – “Who are you?” I have spent most of my 30s learning the answer to this question.

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At 30 years old I was getting promoted and receiving awards that made me globally recognized for my craft. My Wife and I had just had our second kid.

On the surface everything looked great.

Yet on the inside, I was a wreck.

On the inside I was selfish and arrogant.

I had one set of priorities with my words and another one with my actions.

My talent had carried me past what my maturity was ready for.

I went through acute imposter syndrome and believed that it was only a matter of time before everyone found out that I had built my life on what felt like a house of cards.

And then one day a good friend took me to lunch and asked me one question which changed my life:

“Who are you?”

“I’m a Tableau Zen Master”

“No you’re not. That’s what you do. That’s not who you are. Who are you?”

A consultant. A husband. A father.

No. No. No.

I didn’t know what to say. I asked him to tell me what to say and I would say it. But he loved me too much to let me off that easy.

Two more meetings over a few months focused on the same question.

At the end of the last one, maybe out of frustration, he asked “When you were born, and you had done nothing in this world, who were you?”

And it hit me.

My parents tried and failed to have many children. I was their one and only. When I was born, I was a gift. An identity that could never be earned. An identity given to me by my Creator that can never be taken away.

At 31 years old I was given the gift to understand that who I was had nothing to do with what I did.

At 32 I realized my life wasn’t all about me.

I’m slow, so it took until I was 33 to realize that life was about serving those around me.

By 34, I was able to stand on a foundation strong enough to begin to share my journey and the freedom that I had found in the grace in which I was now standing.

I felt like I had found the cure for cancer. I wanted to lead as many others on this journey that changed my life as I could.

As I approached 35, God put a new calling on my life - to become an entrepreneur, building a servant leadership organization that focuses on equipping and inspiring the next generation to discover who they truly are, so that they may become leaders worth following. An organization that would have a generational impact, so that my kids, and your kids, and our grandkids would have leaders to look up to that would be worth following.

At 35, I stepped out in faith and open the doors of that organization, a decision that will forever change my life, and I hope the lives of countless others.

Yet somehow, this did not make life easier. More purposeful, yes. Requiring more growth, absolutely. I made this move as the sole breadwinner of my family while having four kids age 6 and younger.

Don’t ever let your circumstance stand in the way of what God is calling you to do.

At 36, I was leading an organization of 4 people and trying to navigate an infant business through a global pandemic. There was no playbook for that, so we made one up.

By 37, we were beginning to have some success and had made over a $1 million impact in the marketplace.

At 38, it seemed like we had built a thriving organization, growing 300% each year for the first three years of its existence. We felt the wind in our back. If I’m honest, it also felt like some of the rules of business didn’t apply to us because of all the success we were having on the way up.

And then came 39. This last year is right up there with 30 as being the hardest ones of my life. Business got harder. A lack of fundamentals (systems and process, sales and marketing, leadership focus, and others…) was exposed. I went through four sudden and hard deaths. I lost a life long mentor, my mother-in-law, a nine year-old kid I coached in baseball, and a guy I coached with, all in the span of six months. Death felt relentless.

In addition to the personal losses, we also began to feel loss in our organization. In the first 4 1/2 years of the organization, we had only had three departures. In the last five months, we have launched eight people into the marketplace. Those folks have gone on to start four new organizations, and others are heading to dream jobs they have shared publicly they would not have gotten without their time and what they learned about themselves in life while they were here.

We started this organization with the vision to equip, inspire, launch, and sustain the next generation of data and technology leaders. And all of a sudden, our vision was coming to life. And as beautiful as it is to see, it has been emotionally challenging to remain open handed with incredible people who have become great friends, watching them launch out of Analytic Vizion into leadership in their next chapters. It is a disciplined decision to continue to cheer for them as they step out on the next part of their journey.

One of the greatest challenges of leadership is the fact that, if you do it well, eventually those you lead no longer need you. This is especially true when it comes to parenting. We spend 18 years raising infants into adults, and if we’ve done our job well, they are able to fully stand on their own two feet. It can be a better reward for a job well done. Yet this is our responsibility as parents and leaders. It is so gratifying to watch those we love grow in real time.

And so today I arrive at 40.

Another mentor has shared that your 30s are a decade of stress.

I feel like mine were turned up to 11.

He has also shared that your 40s are a decade of possibility.

Possibility. Amen.

I share this because this is my journey. If you are sitting there in your 20s hoping to build a life that creates an impact, my greatest encouragement to you is to have patience and do the work. If you’re in your 30s and you’re wondering why everything is so hard, my encouragement to you is to have patience and do the work.

And the faster you realize your life is not about you, the faster you will find that purpose and that impact in which you seek.

Do not judge your beginning by someone else’s middle or end. Live your life on purpose, one step forward at a time.

#JoyInTheJourney #HeresTo40