My personal life had an impact on my innovation output throughout my career. My life outside of work caused me to (a) minimize my time at work and (b) maximize corporate creativity while in the office. This approach was successful, not only for my own family’s personal benefit, but for my corporation as well.
I thought it would be interesting to look back on the people, activities, and adventures that gave me a continual positive attitude while experiencing the ever-necessary, never-ending return-to-work blues on Monday. Family is at the top of the list.
My wife, children, extended family, and grandchild!
My wife Katy and I met at church camp (Rolling Ridge Conference Center in North Andover, Massachusetts) when we were 12 years old. She is beautiful inside and out. It made no sense to me why in the world I would stay later than 5 PM when I could be home with her. At the time of my retirement we’ve been friends for nearly 47 years and married for over 35. Together we had two amazing children: Becky and Matthew. I loved attending all of their volleyball/softball/soccer/baseball/basketball games and was able to coach them. Becky’s husband Mike has become a second son for Katy and I, and together Becky and Mike have started their own family and given us the amazing Adelaide Rose, our granddaughter. How blessed I was (and am!) to have such a family; it gave me a drive to put in a productive forty hours and then get home to spend time with them. I was also fortunate to stay geographically close to my Mom, Dad, brother, sister, and extended family throughout my work career, enjoying holidays, birthdays, and family time together.
Church and prayer
My Dad was a Methodist pastor. So was my Mom’s father. And my sister. And my uncle.
So it’s safe to say that church was a big part of my life. My Dad turned his back on his old life in college and spent the rest of his life serving Christ. I did the same in my 20s.
How did this fuel innovation? One big part of my faith was being invited to pray every morning at 5AM by a couple of crazy guys who went to church with me in the Worcester area. For roughly ten years of my work career I would drive (and sometimes walk!) to church to spend an hour with them in prayer. This happened six days per week.
Liberty Church, Shrewsbury MA
Perhaps the most creative part of my church experience was writing and directing plays for the youth. It was too much fun and my kids made friends for life.
Did that dedication to God in prayer spill over into blessings at work? There is no doubt that it did.
The other important part of my faith came from watching my father serve broken people: divorce, death, alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, abuse, etc. The opportunity to help others became much more important to me than building software. Indeed, during my retirement I plan on staying involved in ministries like Celebrate Recovery and Stephen Ministries, two church-based programs that I benefited from greatly as I recovered from my own brokenness.
My active participation in church over the course of my 38-year career was foundational to putting my forty-hour work week into perspective.
Recreation
I loved athletics and being an outdoorsman. I played basketball at lunch for over twenty years. (One little known fact was that I was an animal on the basketball court, resulting in frequent trips to the emergency room.) I played on work softball teams and neighborhood softball teams. I played racquetball at the YMCA, tennis on nearby outdoor courts in the summer, and pickleball towards the end of my career. I regularly went to the gym after prayer (which was right down the street from my church!). There’s no doubt that expending energy via exercise gave me energy at work.
But the biggest recreation fuel of all was my enjoyment of camping, hiking, and backpacking. At various points in my career I crisscrossed the country at least eight times with our family trailer. I volunteered with my daughter Becky for the White Mountain National Forest service as a wilderness monitor. I tented overnight many times, most memorably with my son on a ten-day backpacking and tenting trip to Philmont Scout Ranch.
The synergy between my work life and recreational activities was always there. Work funded my recreation; recreation fueled my work.
International Travel
Perhaps the most interesting “phase” of my career was becoming the Director of Global Innovation at EMC. One of my main responsibilities was to travel to all of our global engineering locations and visit local universities, establishing research projects with local professors, businesses, and startups. My journeys took me to Ireland, China, Brazil, India, Russia, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, England, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, and more.
I was able to bring my family on many of those trips, forming international friendships that I feel very fortunate to have. When my international colleagues visited EMC headquarters in Massachusetts, many of them ended up visiting my family at my home, or at least going out and having dinner together. My kids especially loved those international connections and ended up being travelers themselves. My granddaughter has already been to Portugal and Puerto Rico before she was even 18 months old!
Once again the richness of my personal life benefited my professional life, and vice versa.
USA Travel
I mentioned that my family and I crisscrossed the USA in our trailer. Indeed, during my last full year of work (2023) my wife and I visited the state of North Dakota, and I hiked in Theodore Roosevelt National Park every morning with buffaloes, wild horses, prairie dogs, deer, rabbits, and antelopes. Why North Dakota? It was my 50th state. My wife and I will visit Alaska (her 50th state) for our first retirement trip.
After Dell acquired EMC, I discovered that Dell was “pro-remote.” The company paid you a small stipend to furnish your home office and give up your work office. They also handed out an extra $50 every month to pay for home internet. At that point in my career I was working as a researcher on a global team that had employees spread out across the United States, Brazil, Ireland, Israel, and China.
So my wife, dog, and I became full-time RVers, working on the road all over the United States. We pulled our trailer to warmer states from October to April, and then stayed the rest of the year at a campground in New Hampshire. We liked it so much we sold our house.
During those years I received some of the best performance appraisals of my career, created one of the best inventions I had ever worked on (Data Confidence Fabrics), and did it from campgrounds all over the USA, helping my wife avoid Massachusetts winters for several years in a row. Happy wife, happy life!
I hope that this list of innovation fuel motivates you to limit the number of hours that you work. Bring the energy from your personal life to your job. Your company will thank you for it.
