davidNprogress

I met my wife over 26 years ago as a result of a blind date and our 24 year anniversary of marriage was last week. That simple lunchtime together led to more dates, marriage, a child and wonderful life that has had its fair share of ups and downs. Through it all, I have striven to be as good of a partner and a husband as I can. I have often failed to live up to my own standards and have tried to take in my inner lessons to be better with every year. It is almost cliche’ for some guys to joke about having married up but I can tell you for sure that is the case for me. I often feel unworthy of this woman I get to spend my days with and want to ensure I am doing my best to live up to being the man she deserves. This week is the start of our 25th year of marriage and a good time to reflect back on what has made our marriage a success and mistakes I have made along the way. It takes a proactive effort to live a life together that thrives through the grind of day to day living and...

The time is now Conner is starting his final fall semester of college and will essentially be done with his degree at the end of this semester. The spring will bring his capstone class, graduation and the start of being fully on his own. It is the dream of every parent for their child to grow up and exceed the life they have lived. We want our children to have an amazing life with a good job, a loving family, financial success, adventure, service to the community and a heart for God. I grew up without strong dreams for all of these things and yet somehow ended up blessed to have much of them. Could I have done more and could I have been more? Absolutely! Nonetheless, we have done our best to live our lives as a positive example for our son and fully expect that he will move on to excel in his own way on his own journey. The path to this point has not come without adversity. Conner is a survivor after having experienced the great trama of his cliff accident his senior year ...

Hello my name is….. Regret, stupid, mistake, loser, ugly, fat, defeat For many people the labels we wear in our hearts about who or what we think we really are can be completely debilitating. Many are self-created for no real reason at all while others are the result of false assessments placed on us through the ignorance and meanness of others. I am 46 yet in my head on bad day I can see very clearly the time as a second or third grader when in a moment of self defeat I etched “dummie” on  a brick outside the west side of our house. That moment and that word haunted me for years as not only did it continue to echo in my head but later I realized it would not come off the brick. I had created a false label.  I think we all do this. We etch labels so deeply in our hearts that we just can’t seem to remove them. Then for some to feel better they transfer these labels to others in an effort to feel better.  I know way too many people that hate themselves an...

Conner is 16 now and it seems lately I have been thinking more and more about his future. What kind of man will he be? How will he do in college? Will his dream of becoming a petroleum engineer come true? Will he go on to have a big house, nice car and fat bank account? That stuff is all well and good but the bottom line really is that I just want him to be a Godly man and happy person no matter what path he takes to get there. I also hope that he is blessed to find a great woman to be his wife and partner through life’s journey. It is kind of surreal to think that his future wife is out there now. This week she will go to class, hang out with friends and I am sure spend a bunch of time texting. She is also daily making choices and developing relationship skills that will impact her and Conner’s future. The teen years are the most formative in determining who we become in the future. Right now she is learning what it means to be part of a family.   Her parents could be marri...

In my role as a Scout volunteer, I recently had the chance to learn a little about techniques to use in a crisis situation as part of the Wilderness Survival merit badge. There was something about the STOP model in the training that struck me as valuable for my personal life as well. The point of the discussion was that often when people get lost there is panic which in turn ends up making the situation worse. There are many examples of people that in crises decided to blaze a way out of dangerous situations by panicking and running through the woods. These folks soon find themselves in even more despair, lost and alone. I realize now that I often make this same error as a parent, husband, and manager. Like many others, I see a problem and I want to immediately jump to a solution. Men are notorious about solution jumping when our wives bring a problem. How different might the outcome be however if I simply followed this model instead. S it=Find some time alone in a ...

The holidays are here and many people will take end of the year vacation time away from work to be with family and friends. My company has a use it or lose it policy and I have several peers that are taking days and still losing time. I know that many folks that are technically off will still find themselves working every day by responding to e-mails, attending meetings and checking performance numbers. Managers are important people with many others depending upon them. At the same time, I think there is no more important job than that of a mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister and friend. Jobs are temporary but your family should be forever. It took me a long time to learn this lesson and realize that it was hurting my family and ultimately my performance at work by not truly disconnecting from time to time. Here are some ideas that have worked for me: • Chose a POC to be in your place when gone. This requires empowering the person to make any needed dec...

“If you learn unhappiness too well you will get good at it”  David after 11 days on the trail  This is a great slap in the face quote I heard recently from one of my favorite podcasters. The point was that the more time we spend unhappy then the more we will become comfortable with it. I went on an 11 day hiking trip this summer and one of the rules was that we were not allowed to wear deodorant due to it being a smellable that could potentially attract bears. I wondered before the trip if an attack from a bear would be better than the smell of a group of unwashed and un-deodorized teen boys. Whew! I realized on the trail this was not going to be a problem since we very quickly got used to our own smells and soon none of us noticed the stink. Things changed quickly however upon my return home when suddenly the smells that had surrounded me without notice attacked the senses much like a rampaging bear. Of course much of this was due to the equally powerful remarks from my ...

I am turning 45 in a couple of weeks and that has put me in a bit of a reflective mood I guess. It really did not help that one of my magazines had an article this month about starting the second half of your life at 45. Next while checking my Roth this week realized I am only 15 years away from 60! I know there is a midlife crises phenomenon that many people experience around this time as they seek to create new achievements or to return to old glory days. Funny thing is that I happen to think I am living my glory days right now with more to come in the future. I have a great job, loving wife (beautiful too BTW), amazing teenage son, and a full plate of volunteer work with kids that help make life fun. There are many great days behind me and I am sure there are even better days ahead. For sure there are big changes with our son soon off to college and a new stage in our married life as empty nesters. I am excited about the future and genuinely thankful to wake up to a new day ...

And so it begins 15 years ago today Michelle and I began our journey together as Mr. & Mrs. Copeland. It all started as a set up blind date on my birthday for lunch. Her good friend Jennifer was a co-worker of mine and for months had been telling me about this person I just had to meet. I was always a bit of shy guy when it came to asking girls out so a blind date sounded like a good idea to me. The years since that lunch date have been better than I ever imagined. Together we have built a rich life full of trials, errors, laughs and most importantly love. One of the most amazing things about these many years is that we do still enjoy each other and believe steadfastly in our future. On this special day, I just want express my thankfulness to God for the wonderful woman He planned for me even before I was born. I am also thankful to have such a great wife that through it all still is there loving and supporting me.  I am indeed a blessed man.

“Take it from a guy with 5 kids. You hope they grow up and move away someday but you want the wife to stay” This was some great advice a few weeks back from a twitter friend as I was having a bit of an internal debate about taking a trip with just the wife while our son is gone on a trip of his own with Scouts. The son was a little mad that we would consider going on a cool mini-vacation without him. This was not something in his 12 years of life that we have ever done. The trip idea is to celebrate our 15th year of married. Truly the advice was a wake up reminder to me that yes the time invested with son is of paramount importance. At the same time, the investment in our husband/wife relationship deserves the same attention. After all, it is our intent to spend the rest of our days on earth together. How many couples focus so much on the kids that when they grow up and leave they are left with no common interests and goals? How many couples after years of kids no longer know how to wo...

Yesterday was my 14th wedding anniversary. To say every moment of these 14 years have been nothing but sunshine and roses would of course not exactly be true. What I can say is that our one to one conflicts have been very few and mostly my fault when they do happen. I doubt if our 12 year old son has ever seen his mom and dad argue. Much of our marital success is due to our natural easy going style but there are other reasons that I think have made for such an enduring and positive relationship. I could write pages by now but here are just a few: We started all in: I meet couples all the time in first marriages that keep finances separate. The thought of doing this actually never entered my mind. We are together as one in every way including our finances. We don’t let the sun go down on our anger: Never let a point of irritation or conflict fester. We talk it out and work it out. We pray and worship together: Church is an important part of our life and our evening bedtime prayer is...