Superhuman: Mission Possible...

Each new day is a real opportunity to make yourself better. It can be another day of new discovery, curiosity and learning.

Are you Superman?

Living day by day, going to work and/or finding the truth, as you talk with other people to hear what they have to say and then perform the tasks to improve your own world or the enterprise.

What about conquering evil the moment you see it or feel it, by using your God given talents in order to protect others and defend people from harm and to provide for their daily needs.

Are you a Father or Mother?

Then you too may be a “Superhuman” (Superman or SuperWoman) and now you truly understand what it really means to be a good responsible parent.

It is difficult to know the feeling and experience the emotions of being a Parent, until you actually are one.

You won’t be able to ever comprehend being a parent by just becoming a singular representative, manager, analyst, chef, teacher, banker, author, artist, supervisor or landlord.

You can learn about what to do or not to do, by watching your sibling or your own parent, a friend or by reading a parenting book or even just watching CoComelon on YouTube.

Yet it is not until you are actually performing and experiencing the moments in your own motherhood or fatherhood, that you will truly understand.

Yes, you will need to be “Superhuman” to achieve a level of true excellence that others will say you are a good and responsible Mom or Dad.

So what?

You alone as a “Superhuman” parent have a duty and mission.

The mission will change your life forever and so you too, have only one person to rely on.

On your next Childs birthday, take the time to reflect. Take the time to think about the journey so far.

Say another prayer.

You know that each birthday of your child is another opportunity for you to show your own super powers as a parent. No matter how old they are on this day.

"Love. Patience. Friendship. Encouragement. Forgiveness. Faith. Love."

Onward!

True Professional: Who Will You Become...

What will you do that is extraordinary and contributes a positive addition in your life that demonstrates your consistent effort and shows your own actual discipline?

It shall demonstrate your devotion and focus on becoming better even though you shall never achieve a level of true perfection.

Continuous skill and knowledge improvement is just that.

The discipline you choose will be so difficult to perfect that even after 2 decades and over 1000 documented examples almost weekly, you are far from the perceived finish line.

1000+ examples / 52 weeks = 19+ years

In September 2003 it all began. Writing words on a regular basis about real topics of interest was a discipline that started a career to become an even better “Operational Risk Specialist”.

Your discipline might be flying aircraft or doing heart surgery and you want to continuously grow your expertise. How do you measure your own consistent effort and show discipline?

Do you measure the number of hours or miles you have on duty in the air or space or classroom or on camera or operating room or court room or missions in theatre using your skills?

Why?

You too may become, a “True Professional”.

Do you measure the quality of your particular skill and/or innovative deliverable on every attempt?

So what?

You see, what ever your discipline may be and to what degree you are practicing consistently to become even better, if you are not measuring it in some way, then is it a real discipline?

What tool do you utilize to capture and measure your accomplishments? A log book, a photo journal, a score card, a web blog, a three ring binder, a digital file folder measured in GBs or TBs?

What are you actually measuring? The Number of attempts. The Quality of completions. The game score?

Maybe it is just a written exam and Two, Three or four letters (_ _ _ _) after your name?

Whether you have become a Doctor, Lawyer, Professor, Pilot, Operator, Specialist, Stylist, Salesperson, Manager, VP, Owner, Driver, Player, Author or Analyst in your life does not really matter to so many.

Maybe it does to you and your specific clients, customers, parishioners and patients and a few of your fellow family, comrades, co-pilots, clergy, operators and other True Professionals.

Yet, when you decide personally that your own professional tenure in this discipline has come to an end and you will stop being measured, then what?

Start a new one and have extraordinary consistent discipline…Godspeed!

Prescience: Coffee on Glebe Road...

 One glorious Spring morning in the National Capital Region (NCR), the coffee meetup was scheduled just about 30 minutes away as the Jeep GC headed down the tree lined woods of Old Dominion Dr. through McLean, VA.

We were meeting at the First Floor Starbucks of the Westin Arlington on North Glebe Road.

The meeting this early Thursday was with a Chief Security Officer (CSO) of a large Defense-Industrial-Base contractor (_ _ _ _) and we had planned to catch-up and talk shop for 45 min.

As we recognized each other in the lobby and made small talk ordering our favorite Starbucks blend, the dialogue shifted to one of the key reasons for our meeting.

Our real focus on Operational Risk Management (ORM) that particular day was the “Insider Threat” best practices that we all were rapidly implementing.

Whether you are talking about an employee or a contract supplier who visits your facility or organization on a single or periodic basis, the threat exists.

It was April 2013 and little did we realize this morning, we both would be hearing the name of Edward Joseph Snowden in July.

“An ex-government (_ _ _) employee now working for another large DIB contractor based in Tysons Corner (_ _ _) as a system administrator, “Ed” might have been thinking about his eventual escape from a government regional operations center in Hawaii as we talked.”

In Northern Virginia just two months earlier, our conversation turned to the actual prescience of the DIB companies “Insider Threat Program” and how many employees working for his company were also current members of a specific large non-profit organization.

One example we discussed was a local non-profit that is excellent on educating and training members on the tools and strategies to enhance protection of intellectual property.

Gaining additional foresight, clairvoyance or the special ability to see or know about events before they actually occur, is your CSO ground zero.

Concern or preparation for the potential future threat event or incident, is on the mind of every Chief Security Officer in the corporate world. Yet, what are you doing this month to improve your own sixth sense?

How many people in your organization are members of non-profit XYZ or ABCDEF that are now focused on training their members on topics of relevant interest to you?

The lesson here, is that whether you are a local Bank Manager, a School Principal, a CxO or just a parent; people in your responsibility are counting on you.

They want you to ask them questions, they want you to test them on their readiness to use CPR or a tourniquet. They want you to make them even feel more safe every day by educating them about ransomware and cyber "phishing".

When our Starbucks coffee meeting was over by 8:00AM, my hunch is that Jeff went back to his Defense Industrial Base company a mile away to do some homework and some rapid internal recruiting of key employees.

As a CxO in your particular organization, how well do you really know your employees, contractors and suppliers?

Easter 2023: Finding Forgiveness...

On Easter weekend growing up in the late 1960’s as a young acolyte at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in a small midwestern U.S. city, there was a tremendous focus on our services.

This holy holiday on Good Friday, was just the start of a busy weekend of prayer and many family gatherings.

As a fellow church acolyte, how well did any of us truly understand the real story around this man known as Jesus Christ?

At this point in serving our local church, how could having so much faith in a man you never met or knew, make any real difference in your day-to-day life?

Over time, the answer to this question became more apparent and continues to make a true difference today in so many ways.

When you grow up as the eldest sibling of four, you are looked upon by your Christian parents as a lead by example kind of person.

Over decades of time, it is hard to count the number of prayers said out loud on numerous occasions and after so many other significant life events.

“Easter is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred on the third day of his burial following his crucifixion by the Romans at Calvary c. 30 AD.”

What Good Friday and Easter are really all about across history is this: “Forgiveness”.

Who will you forgive in your life and who will you pray with?

One truth about our humanity, is that if you too are experiencing forgiveness, whether “Giving it” or “Receiving it”, this creates even more positive outcomes and increased resilience in our personal lives…

Believe.