Adam: Backpacks for Dinner

1 day.  1 day left.  Holding my breath now.  Patiently.  Not holding my breath for resolution.  Resolution and “knowing” don’t just magically arrive on some arbitrary day on the calendar.

“…I’m not standing still,
I’m lying in wait.
…”  –from the Hamilton song, Wait For It

With great intention, I am lying in wait.  I can wait for one more day.  And then I won’t have to wait a day longer.  I’m not expecting Dec 1 to bring immediate resolution or relief.  What sits around this corner is still a giant unknown.  I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited to leap.  But first.  We smile, in waiting.

Tonight’s BFD (Backpacks for Dinner) session will be a special one.  Rusty is hosting a small ceremony for me — we will burn some ships, and I will raise my fists in honor of you — Thank you so much to all of you for your support, your smiles, your hugs, your encouragement, and your nudges during these last few months.  The Flood of Gratitude remains incessant — I am so grateful that I have had this chance to patiently wait.  And I can’t fucking wait to leap.  Nov 30 is tomorrow.  Badass Backpacks: here I come.

It’s a big week ahead of me.  My last 3 days at Blackbaud are Monday – Wednesday, and then I’ll be taking this leap.

Rusty and I have been hard at work on some upcoming online advertising for Badass Backpacks, because it’s time to start selling some bags.  Time to stumble.  Time to take real steps towards growing up.  Over the course of the next few months, I hope some of you will find these ads popping up in your Facebook and Instagram feeds.  🙂  I’ll also start sharing some of Rusty’s handy work on these ads here on the blog.  Here’s the first one, featuring bag #79 chilling with Jimena in Golden Gate Park during the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival:

A photo posted by Adam Lemmon (@badass_backpacks) on Nov 27, 2016 at 9:12pm PST

Thank you Jimena!  And whew … here we go.  3 days and counting.  Here we go.

10 days until Nov 30, and yeah, I’m counting.  

Nov 30 has a big circle on all of my calendars — that will be my final day at Blackbaud.  And December 1 will mark the beginning of something new for me and for Badass Backpacks.  Last December I was just preparing to participate in the altMBA.  Part of that program includes a hefty reading list of books, and I spent most of December diving in deep to read as much as I could in all of the recommended books.  The big thing that surprised me was that I was actually able to complete more of the reading list than I imagined I could.  I had before stared at a stack of books in a power reading list, and I get so intimidated, that I just shy away from starting, but with the immediacy of the altMBA, I just dove right in.  It was cool to see how much I was able to work my way through that stack of books.  So I’m going to try it again this December.  Seems like a perfect time.   [First on my list for this Dec is this highly recommended book:  The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up]

Have you ever felt like you had a layer of something weighing you down?  Something that was there, but you weren’t sure what it is?  Or why it’s feeling so heavy?

Sometimes it’s good to remember that immediately under that layer — is you.  Beautiful and powerful, pure and true.  And you’re there, even when that unexplainable layer of something is weighing you down.  You can always come back to who you really are.

The above paintings are two of the magnificent paintings that Eli Halpin created as part of our newest project, Oil Spill.  There are 5 paintings total that she created for this project and I’ll continue to slowly roll out more snippets of her other paintings here on the blog (as well as some sneak-peek shots of how these paintings are making their way onto some bags).  I had the chance to swing through Eli’s stop on the East Austin Studio Tour during these last 2 weekends and it was a reminder that seeing Eli’s artwork in person is something special.  We continue to be inspired and very excited that we’re getting this chance to work with her (and with her chief partner in crime, Michael)!

I hosted a small gathering for the Texas altMBA alumni this past weekend and it was a meaningful session.  Challenges were discussed, ideas were shared, nudges were given, and leaps are being taken.  We started our time together by diving in on a quick writing exercise – focused on gratitude.  We had a stack of GapingVoid gratitude postcards in front of us to give a nudge, and as always, Hugh’s art served as a wonderful conversation starter.

During the session I had a chance to share some updates on my work with Badass Backpacks, including some of the challenges I face, and areas where I need to ask for help.  In the midst of that discussion, Neala Moore took a daring leap and she jumped in to point out (paraphrasing) … “Adam, listen to how much you’re hesitating, using the words ‘but this’ and ‘but that’.  Cut out the buts – you need to burn your ships.”  It became a heavy reference for the remainder of our conversation.  “Burn the ships!”  (Fully commit!)  This phrase references how legends tell when Cortes, Alexander the Great, and others too, took their armies abroad, and not wanting any thoughts drifting backwards:  they burned their boats.  No option.  March forward, or die trying.

As Nov 30 inches closer (Nov 30 will be my last day at Blackbaud), I am taking a big gulp.  Full of fear.  I keep saying things in conversation like:

• Well, I’m going to focus on Badass Backpacks, but maybe I need to look for part-time work.
  OR
• Well, I’m going to push on Badass Backpacks, but our pace has been so slow up until now, that I don’t know if we should try to speed things up.

And I’m so grateful for the nudge that Neala gave me.  Because I think she is onto something.  Those above statements are riddled with momentum destroying hesitation.  Burning my ships?  No looking back?  I’m not familiar with burning my boats.  It makes me uncomfortable.  🙂  (One value of the altMBA is to pay close attention when something makes you uncomfortable – this is a sign that there might be something worth ACTING ON.)  [quick note here that burning the ships, is entirely different than burning bridges – I love building bridges and connections, and that’s an entirely different conversation :)]

As always – huge hat tip to the altMBA for continuing to inspire, challenge, and encourage me.  And thank you Neala, Sandy, and Andre!

____________

[We’re taking a rare break from our Tuesday night BFD session tomorrow.  It’s election day in the US.  We’ll be back in action next week.  November marches on and Nov 30 is right around the corner.  BURN THE SHIPS :-)]

I’ve been preparing a few small things for an upcoming meetup with some of my fellow altMBA alumni — we have some good questions that we’ll talk through with the group to guide our sharing and collaboration.  During this meet up, the final challenge that each of us will answer is an interesting one for me.  That question is:

“… Ask a question about something you need help with, a connection or an insight or a nudge that would help.”

It puts a big smile on my face, because an emerging theme or area of focus for me right now is to push myself on getting better at asking for help… and getting better at receiving it when help does arrive.  I’m not always good at asking for help.  I know I can get better at it.  I’m working now on getting clear about how I’ll ask my altMBA peers for some help or for a nudge … and I know I’ll be ready to receive whatever help, advice, or nudges that they can gift to me.

“Be grateful for every little mercy.”
–Lanell Coultas

The more I look around, the more I see help just waiting around every corner.  Abundance begets abundance, and “abundance begins with gratitude”. 

Oil Spill – Quick Update

Rusty and I had an epic night this past Tuesday.  Most of our work centered around next phases for our website and our efforts to raise the volume for promoting Badass Backpacks.  But we’re also in full swing with Critical Path #1 (making bags) — I’ve been on the phone with our maker this week, and we’ve also started our “sample bin” where I’ll be collecting all of the materials together before shipping them off to be constructed.  Preparing the sample bin will be a multi-week process as I still have to order quite a few parts, and also because we’ll be waiting a touch longer on the printing queue (fabric printing).  I’ll get some photos of the sample bin ready for the blog soon.  And what is Eli up to?  Well, she’s just hanging out with some animals in Alaska that are rehabilitating from being covered in oil.  You’re amazing Eli!  Here’s a quick snapshot just a few steps further back from the painting I shared a smaller snippet of last week – this comes from one of the paintings by Eli that will be featured on our upcoming bags:

Rusty and I are heads down tonight: BFD.  Among other things, we’ll be working in the weeks ahead on some promotion efforts to start building a bit more buzz around Badass Backpacks.  Good things.  And fun work.

In other quick roundup news:

• There was a micro-prompt in the altMBA alumni community that got me reflecting on some of the work I did early this year during my time in the altMBA.  So I posted this for the altMBA alumni:  https://alumni.altmba.com/adamlemmon/where-are-we-on-this-initiative/
  (it’s a long read, but it was fun to give a shout out and an update to the amazing altMBA community)   If you follow this blog, you know that I’m a big fan of the altMBA – y’all don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you want to chat about applying to participate in the altMBA during one of the 2017 sessions!
• I posted this beautiful photo of the collaborative team working on Oil Spill:  https://www.instagram.com/p/BLudGamB16Z/?taken-by=badass_backpacks
• Apparently Badass Backpacks was mentioned on 101X’s morning show with Jason & Deb — I didn’t hear it happen, and I still haven’t been able to find a recording of it to know what was said.  I was told that they were googling things that started with “Badass” and our website came up.  Did we just get our first ever radio mention?  If so – that’s badass.  If not … well, one can dream.

Time to start focusing on we can promote this project a little bit more.  We’re asking ourselves:  how can we start to raise our voices?  We started with a whisper.  Now then, how can we get just a little bit louder?  It’s a fun question to ask.

Badass Backpacks is excited to announce our newest bag collaboration – code name:  Oil Spill.  We’ve been working with the amazing Eli Halpin on this newest bag concept, and it’s been an amazing journey so far – huge shout and huge Thank You here to Eli! … and we’re just getting started.  This new bag won’t be ready to sell until later (2017).  But in the meantime, I’m excited to start sharing some behind the scenes insight into what we’re up to with our next bag production (“6 things“).  Eli has created some beautiful new paintings that we’ll be featuring on the bag, Rusty and I have been heads down in Photoshop – cropping, resizing, reconfiguring, and reworking the artwork layout for the initial prototype bags.  We’ll keep sharing more here as this collaboration marches onward.

Where did this bag concept begin?  And why is our chosen code name “Oil Spill”?

My friend and former cube mate (Blackbaud), Allison Asbury Summers, discovered some amazing artwork by Eli and she excitedly shared that with me earlier this year.  Allison’s mother had purchased some of Eli’s art, and it is really beautiful … so I was more than a little thrilled that when I reached out to Eli to ask her about collaborating with Badass Backpacks – she agreed to meet with me.  Thank you Allison for making connections (connections in general and also specifically for making this connection)! 

The conversations that have unfolded in recent months with Eli have been really meaningful.  She and her chief collaborator and partner, Mike, have met frequently with Rusty and me, and they’ve been joyfully inviting us into their space.  (In addition to frequent meetups at Eli’s studio, I also attended a special event with Eli at The New Movement theater earlier this year where she used her paintings and her stories to fuel an improv team on stage – it was fun and inspiring!  (And yes Andrew, same place.))  All of this means that I have pages of notes in my sketch book, and even more layers of notes in my thoughts about where we’re headed with this new bag — but the first thought to share is a very simple one: I am learning that I have a tendency to overthink things.  I want so badly to search and to search and to search in hope of finding something that I might be looking for … and sometimes when I stop, and let go of everything that I’m holding onto: I find something beautiful staring me in the face.  Pause.  Let go.  Look closely at what is.  One thing that Oil Spill is about:  Finding beauty in strange places, by letting go of preconceived ideas.  [Or maybe it’s just about beauty.  We’re still having the conversation. :)]  Eventually this bag will get a proper name and I can’t wait to start sharing more of the collaborative conversation, as well as the artwork that Eli as created for this project.  For now, here’s a close up slice of an amazing painting that she created (This is a tiny snippet.  The full painting is massive in scale at ~80in wide!) — I’ll zoom out further to show more as we start sharing more about all of this.

Badass Backpacks in collaboration with Eli Halpin — here comes our project, code named: Oil Spill.

I’m pretty excited.  Big smiles.

Last week I announced to my team at Blackbaud that I’ll be stepping down and leaving Blackbaud behind after almost 13 years.  Nov 30, 2016 will be my last day there.  It’s a big moment.  I’ve grown up during my time at Blackbaud, and it’s time to leap.  The moment when Nancy and I made this big decision, it was like a lightning bolt in my body.  Immediate.  The first emotion I felt was one of pure unfiltered gratitude.  I instantly wanted to run to the office and just hug every single person there.  I’m so overwhelmed and overflowing with gratitude for what Blackbaud has given to me, for what I’ve learned in the last 13 years — it’s just off the hook beautiful and insane.  And it feels amazing.  I don’t want to hide the fact that my last few years in particular have had their fair share of frustrations — those close to me know that I have struggled.  I have fought hard to keep perspective, and to make sure that my stumbles didn’t get in the way of seeing clearly, and I’ve fought even harder to make sure that my frustrations didn’t prevent me from being fully present to serve the amazing nonprofits and the amazing people I work with every day.  Having been on the front lines of that struggle each and every day for a long time:  I find it even more amazing that in this moment of arriving at a new place, arriving at a decision, I am filled with a gratitude of the highest order.  I feel a lightness that I never expected — this is a scary new thing — and I feel so light.  I feel more alive than I have in a long time.  And I am bursting with joyful gratitude.

Thank you Convio, and thank you Blackbaud.  I have grown up during the last 13 years.  And you have enabled me to grow in more ways than one.  I am filled with intense emotion, and overwhelming gratitude.  

Looking ahead — starting December 1, I’ll be stepping into unknown territory.  My first point of order will be to clear out some clutter and to focus on my family.  I’ll also be gifting myself the chance to ask some big questions — and to not be too worried about finding answers.  I am planning to put Badass Backpacks where it belongs in my life: front and center for “how I use my hands, my head, my heart, and my hustle” to create something beautiful.  I am stoked for Badass Backpacks to have more of my time.  But way more importantly than that: I am in awe of the mountain that I stand on top of, and that I have the privilege to shout from — I am in awe of the incredible support that my Blackbaud colleagues have given me to lift me up and help me land in this new place.  Nov 30 is still a little ways off from now … so I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts on this decision, and I’ll have new thoughts on what’s next; afterall, what lies ahead is pure unknown for me.  But right now, standing on top of this mountain, I get to pause and enjoy this view for a moment longer.  I’m going to stand here with this silly grin, because I have new mountains to climb, and I want to shout from this one before I head off to conquer that next one.  And before I start shouting about what I want to become, and before I start shouting about everything that I want Badass Backpacks to become — allow me to shout first, with a big huge smile:  

Thank you Blackbaud!  Thank you!  Thank you for everything.

Now then — it’s Tuesday night people!  BFD is in session — nostalgic announcement behind me, there’s work to do, and I’ll have more announcements to make in the days ahead.  More alive than ever… Let’s all keep moving

I had a very noisy day today.  Distractions?  No.  When I have momentum, I notice if distractions are getting too much attention, and I’m often pretty good about putting distractions where they belong.  Today’s noise was different.  It was interruption after interruption that simply could not be avoided.  And it was happening on a day when I had a lot of things to all needed immediate attention.

“Signal to noise ratio is a measurement of the relationship between the stuff you want to hear and the stuff you don’t.”
– Seth Godin  

Sometimes we have to work hard to put distractions aside.  Cut out the clutter and the noise, and we can find the signal.  And sometimes, we have to find the signal, amidst all of the noise.

My dearest Alejandra  — I spent most of the day working with you by my side.  And I loved every minute of your incessant singing, bantering and screaming at the top of your lungs.  You are quite possibly one of the loudest things created on the face of this planet, and I can’t wait for more of it — I love watching you find your voice.  We’ll work on the volume thing.  

“You can be right, or you can be connected.”
– Carrie Contey

I don’t want to be right.  I want to be connected.  What’s the story inside all of this noise?  How can we connect with that story?  I’m slowing down for a moment, to listen for it.

It’s another Tuesday night — Rusty and I are meeting for BFD.  We’re still hard at work on our 3 critical paths.  With so much noise, I hope we can dial in, and find some signal.  I promised some announcements in my blog reawaken last week.  Yes yes yes… stay tuned.  We’ll get to that very soon.  Right now, we need to knuckle down with our little window of Tuesday night time.

(Pro Tip:  This seems like an appropriate post to highly recommend Steven Pressfield’s the War of Art)  

 

Happy Equinox!  🙂  Did you feel it today?  That magical bit where we find ourselves just in between the extremes of summer and winter?  Happy Springtime my Southern friends – and happy Fall to all of us North of the equator.

The equinox middle point is the perfect time to embrace change of all kinds.  Earlier this year I mentioned my amazing GapingVoid laptop decal – it has made me smile pretty much every time I pull out my computer this year.  I love it so much that I’m sad to see it go.  But I’m needing to shift gears a bit, and following the lead of my altMBA friends, I’m looking for ways to lean into discomfort.

“Empathy is difficult … If you believed what he believes, you’d do precisely what he’s doing. Think about that for a second. …”
― Seth Godin  

In an election year, my new decal is feeling a little bit uncomfortable:

Uncomfortable is not just okay.  It’s perfect.  Lean into the discomfort.  Can we all try to be a little bit more empathetic?  “Us versus Them” is starting to feel more like a lose / lose conversation.  What can we do to change that?  Badass Backpacks is working on it.  It’s uncomfortable work.  My new laptop decal will be a good reminder to not just look for empathy … but to look until we find it.

“There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’ve heard their story. ”
― Mary Lou Kownacki