An L&D Professional’s Birthday Wish

Today is my birthday, and my wish for this year is that I get lots of presents. Since you’re just reading this now and not even Amazon’s same-day service will help you at this point, maybe you can give me a different kind of gift. For my birthday in this weird year of 2020, I’d love to get the gift of comments on today’s post. Specifically, I’d love the gift of knowing one thing – personally or professionally – that you’re thankful for this year.

I’ll start. Actually, since it’s my 45th birthday, I’ll share 45 things that I’m thankful for.

“But Brian, this is a column about L&D, instructional design and professional development… what does this have to do with any of that?”

I’m glad I asked. I’m a firm believer that work/life balance and mindful reflection are two essential elements to any professional development. Plus it’s my birthday, so you should do what I ask you to do.

Here are 45 things I’m thankful for…

1. My health
2. My family’s health
3. Tim (my Endurance Learning co-founder and business partner)
4. Heather (our first hire)
5. Lauren (a former teacher turned scrappy instructional designer)
6. Rachel (the eagle-eyed teammate who assures all our work is quality)
7. WiFi (sooooooooo much better than dial-up!!)
8. Mr. Sketch’s blue stinky cheese marker (I have no idea who thought this would be a good idea to put into a pack of scented markers, but I do know a certain 5-year-old who cackles every time someone unsuspectingly uses this marker)
9. A lunch with my daughter that came with a paper placemat featuring “The Periodic Table of Lunchbox Laboratory” (because the restaurant was called The Lunchbox Laboratory and had a science/experiment theme)
10. Because it inspired this periodic table.
    
11. Which turned into this blog post and this magazine article
12. And will turn into a book that will be released next spring!!!
13. Being able to cross “write a book” off my bucket list
14. Eliza Blanchard (the ATD editor who has championed so many things I’ve worked on and who helped with that book proposal)
15. Schitt’s Creek (laughter has been quite important this year)
16. Embracing podcasts (to listen to, learn from and to record and release each Monday)
17. Clark Quinn (for having the willingness and humor to record this podcast with me)
18. The opportunity to serve as President of my local ATD chapter
19. Having an amazing Board that helped me to get things done in our local ATD chapter
20. And an amazing administrative person (Ann!!!) at ATD Puget Sound
21. A creative ATD Puget Sound programs team who organized an ultra-fun virtual Trivia Night (for those of us who missed being able to go out to pub trivia nights!) complete with nerdy training-related questions!
22. The opportunity to talk with a bunch of past chapter Presidents so I could learn from their experiences and try to avoid past mistakes
23. A job that lets me be as creative as I dare
24. Three years of working from home (so when March 2020 came around, I was already a remote working and virtual meeting master!)
25. The opportunity to spend more time with my two awesome kids as they navigate remote school this year
26. Betty Dannewitz, who is just an all-around good person to know in the field of learning and development
27. “Ten Rounds with Jose Cuervo” which is the song Betty made me sing on a karaoke outing during ATD TechKnowledge (I think there might be a video of this somewhere)
28. A slew of new clients this year that we’ve been able to help convert programs from in-person to virtual delivery
29. Two new pairs of running sneakers (so one pair can get a day off while I use the other pair to try to get back into some sort of healthy exercise routine)
30. The opportunity to present at ATD TechKnowledge because it was a fresh, new take on in-person conferences (and I didn’t know it at the time, but it would be the last in-person conference I’d attend for a while)
31. Kassy LaBorie who brings the good energy and has brilliant things to say about virtual learning
32. A good set of Michelin Defender tires (I’ve taken a lot of road trips this year)
33. The opportunity to cross “visit Glacier National Park” off my bucket list
34. Tom Brady’s departure from the New England Patriots
35. The release of Soapbox to quickly develop virtual presentations
36. Arizona
37. Wisconsin
38. Michigan
39. The discovery of new ed-tech tools that can be used in a training environment such as Pear Deck and classkick
40. Learning how to engage virtual learners better and better with each virtual session
41. The opportunity to try new things during conference presentations I was supposed to do in-person but ended up doing virtually
42. A very patient girlfriend who is also a really good thought partner, and who makes balancing work and life so much easier
43. That you’re still reading this post (and this blog in general)
44. 44 pretty cools trips around the sun already
45. The possibility of 45 more…

As I re-read this list, there are a lot of relationships I’m thankful for, which aligns quite nicely with my one-word resolution that I set at the beginning of the year (“partnership”).

Your turn. I’d love to read one thing that you’ve been thankful for in the comment section. Don’t let me down. It’s my birthday!