Monday Motivation: An Airport Connection For The Record Books.

Good morning, Cadre. I'm just slightly early. I'm a couple minutes early today as I have to get moving, but Happy Monday. Didn't sleep the best, but that's okay. It'll be a good day regardless. I've got to change my attitude, my mindset that it will be regardless of a little lack of sleep. It is what it is. Hope, Hope everybody's having a great start to your week thus far. Jc, your. Your Monday morning talk right out the gates was just awesome. It was so great to listen to you. You're. You're the best.

Thank you, jc. Happy Monday to you and yours. Hope everybody had a fantastic weekend and if you celebrate Easter, hopefully it was a good time with you and your family. If you don't celebrate Easter, hopefully it was a great time with whatever you chose to do. But Happy Monday again. I have a story that I want to share with you that is. I think it really just kind of highlights where we are in this world. And I think it's super important to take a moment to pause and think about this. Okay, so long story short, this last week was insanely busy.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday was really, really busy. And my family drove up on Friday to head up north to the range for, for Easter weekend. All the things with my father in law who's in the nursing home and my mother in law. So they drove up on Friday morning and the option was that I could leave after Friday of work and drive up and do the three hour drive alone. We'd have two cars up there, all that. I was like, I just don't want to do that. So what's really crazy is the cost was basically about the same.

Um, so I flew out instead. So I flew out of Minneapolis and I flew up to Hibbing, right? And so it's like six minutes, eight minutes away from my mother and father in law's house. And Em came up, picked me up. It was remarkable. Love. Like just shaving off time. That was, that was really nice. The flight was like 38 minutes. But before I of course had my Timberwolves sweatshirt on, we had a big Timberwolves game that night. Minnesota Timberwolves shout out. Huge win over the Lakers. But. But I was at the airport and I was at this place called Joe and the Juice.

And I was standing in line and you know, the individual's helping me. She was really nice and I was like, I would love a shot of turmeric. Turmeric. And she's like, I'm sorry, we don't have that. And I'm like, okay, I'd love a shot of ginger. I'm sorry, we don't have that. I'm like, okay, how about I go with the green. The green machine or whatever that green machine juice was. And she's like, well, I'm sorry to say it again. We don't have kale. I'm like, there's no way that you don't have these three things.

I'm just, you know, joking back and forth with her or whatever. It was a cool interaction. I went with something different for a juice, which was great. And when I was standing up there, this guy was kind of looking over and whatnot. And I looked back over at him and he's like, hey, I love the hoodie. And so I went over there and chit chatted with him. And it was this guy. I don't think he'd mind me sharing this at all. His name is Eric Christofferson. And him. For him growing up, he actually. His dad had a big.

He was a big participant in getting the Wolves, actually, to Minnesota. So he was always on their team charter buses. He kind of grew up with the T Wolves, with their general managers. And it was just really interesting to hear stories of all the things that he had to share. But was really important is we just kind of chitchat a little bit. And he's telling me about his kind of his life story and, you know, you know, where he lived and where he used to live. And he was divorced, unfortunately, but he found an amazing partner.

She lives in Indiana, Indianapolis. And it was just kind of going back and forth, and I got to hear all of this. And then it led into. And it bled into a different conversation, which was also about, you know, golf and his love of golf. And he's the assistant coach at St. Thomas Academy. He. He does it from a volunteer basis. He loves it. And he talked about this seventh grader that's in our backyard here that I know very, very well that. And it's just crazy. All because you let human connection flow.

And he said, I just gotta tell you, like, how many people are around here that just don't even have the opportunity to do this, to just lean into a connection, because they're just literally dialed in on their phones. And I was watching, and we kind of looked around and we were like, oh, my gosh, like, look around here. Everyone's just like, heads down, you know, all into their phone, and they forget, like, the world is happening around them. And now here, Eric and I exchange cell phone Numbers.

He's like, I'd love to take you golfing. Because I was telling him, I'm like, I would love a coach for golf. I want to get better. I want to learn the game of golf. I want to be a much better golfer than I am. Like, one of my big goals this year is to participate on Thursday nights. I told you guys all about this before, but all because I leaned into the power of connection, communication, and most importantly, he did. And he was like, hey, love the sweatshirt. All. All started from a hey, I love the sweatshirt.

Which turned into a 40, 45 minute conversation, barely lucky enough to make sure that I landed on get. Got on the plane in time because I was just kind of like, we just started talking and it's like Fast Friends type of thing. But I encourage you to find these moments of life where you normally sit on your phone and you usually say like, I'm just going to scroll, I'm going to look, I'm going to do my emails, I'm going to text, I'm going to make calls, whatever there is. Human connection abounds right in front of your face.

And I would really encourage you all to lean into those opportunities. It could be at a grocery store, could be at airport, waiting for, you know, a ride, anything along those lines. So when you get the opportunity and you get the chance to lean into the power of actual human connection, by all means, take it, go with it and roll with it. For me, this is just an example from Saturday. Eric Christofferson is now somebody that I am going to text, I'm going to follow up with, and I can't wait to golf with him, all because he yelled at me, hey, I love the hoodie.

And it turned into an awesome connection. So when you get these moments at work, outside of work, personally, professionally, at the gym, you name it. Instead of like just kind of like staying in your shell and being that turtle, you know, just. Just find a way to like, put your head out a little bit. And you just never know what might happen. You might meet the next Eric, just like I did. So take care, everybody. Have a wonderful Monday. Do something good for one another. Lift somebody up if you're at work.

You know, right now we're struggling, we're struggling at work. You know, 87% of individuals have had, you know, stress and mental health, at least one mental health episode in the last year at work. And 40% of those individuals are having multiple episodes each month. So when somebody is not showing up and being their best self at work, they maybe lean into a little bit of support in ways in which you could lift somebody up rather than immediately penalizing them or finding a way for them to get out of the organization.

Like, how can we lean into individuals to support them and lift people up? You know, we're all kind of struggling right now. Well, that's what all the data across the world states. So think about that one and just find ways in which you can lift somebody up today. Okay, Take care, everybody. Thanks for all you do in the world. It matters. It matters. So big time. So peace and have a great day. All right. Bye. Bye.