The fact that I’m writing this blog post on a Saturday morning just 30 minutes before going backpacking in the Jefferson Wilderness area in Central Oregon says a lot about blog guilt and how crazy it has been in the office the week after returning from vacation (I know – don’t feel sorry for me – I’m stoked to get the longest vacation in my career).
This post is going to be a stream of conscience similar to Holden Caulfield’s rants in “A Catcher in the Rye.” I was actually out of the office for 2.5 weeks with the first 1/2 week at my Grandmom’s memorial service in Maryland. It was a hugely positive trip as different family units between my Dad and his 3 sisters and all of the cousins, nephews, and neices connected in a meaningful way that hasn’t happened in quite a while. My grandmom was the family matriarch and instilled in all of us the importance of family, community, and was the consummate hostess for social and family gatherings.
Basically, the whole 2.5 weeks were 3 separate trips, all with family. Trip 1: Maryland (with an incredible day boating, sea kayaking, and having a huge crab feast on the Chesapeake Bay). Trip 2: San Juan Islands, Washington with my wife, our two girls, and her Mom and Mom’s husband – a week on a cabin cruiser boat with the 6 of us island hopping to San Juan Island, Orcas, Stuart Island, and Lopez Island. It was our first real trip together w/ Shan’s folks and we shared some great memories and awesome discoveries of Dungeness crab, shrimp, fish, sea anemone, starfish, and amazing hikes along the shore. It was a bit chilly, but the kids loved it, and nice to get away from it all. Trip 3: Black Butte Ranch, Central Oregon with my side of the family – 20 of us in 1 house – 9 kids loving it and all the adults doing what each of us are passionate about whether it be the outdoors, golf, or eating/drinking – massive feasts.
I’m realizing that I’ve got too much to say to fit into this one blog post, but some of my realizations from being away from the office and with family for an extended time are this – family is everything and it feels fantastic when things flow smoothly and everyone can go at their own speed. In a family where all of us are Alpha personalities, we’ve just now figured out how to do that – shocking.
I would be lying if I said that I didn’t think about work at all. In fact, I got a lot of clarity and focus on what needs to be done at eROI which are all about execution of 2 main things that we’ve been working on all year:
1. Do a phenomenal job with the roll out of our next generation event registration and database marketing software products over the next 12 months. This is so critical to the company.
2. Continue to launch websites, community sites, blogs, and email designs that delight and inspire our customers (and us).
If we can do these 2 things over the next 12 months, we will be in a phenomenal position. As a secondary realization, I also recognized that I absolutely love being part of the fabric of the Portland business community, and the way that I can have the most impact is for eROI to be successful. As founder and CEO of the company, eROI is a huge piece of my professional identity and, if I’m honest with myself, it’s also a major part of my personal identity. If we can execute the top 2 priorities above, it will put us in a position where we can have a substantial positive impact on the world.
I’m pretty darn psyched about being an Inc. 5000 company for the second year in a row. Last year, I was so inspired by being around my entrepreneurial peers at the Inc. 5000 Conference in Chicago, I vowed to go back to the conference this year whether we made the list or not. It’s a little bit sweeter that we actually made the list, regardless of dropping from the #402 position to #1142 fastest growing company in the country (yes, it’s much much harder to grow substantially from a larger revenue number, then when you first start out).
