A Recycling Bin and a Revelation

I looked -- half with sympathy and half with confusion -- at the old man standing outside my house on Monday night.

"How long have you been doing this?" I asked.

"Since I died," he said.

Like most people, I mostly avoid conversations with strangers -- especially strangers who, at first glance, seem a little creepy. I'm too busy, have too many fun apps on my iPhone, and well, who talks to random people anymore? That's what the Internet is for, right? Why actually make a human connection that can potentially lead to awkward conversation or suck up some of my precious free time? Seems weird in 2015.

"Since you died?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

"I died in 1996," the old man said.

The old man, who is named Paul (and sometimes Kenny and sometimes Jesus Christ because of the reactions he got in a past job as an inspector), goes through the recycling bins I leave outside my house every week. I always thought it was kind of odd, especially in the suburbs. Is it really worth the time and effort to collect cans you can redeem for a nickel. One hundred cans, which seems like a lot of work, is five dollars, and really, what can you buy with five dollars?

So, every week, I look outside as he searches through the bins.

"What do you think he's looking for?" I ask Bridget. "Isn't this weird for the suburbs? I understand homeless people do this in the city, but this guy doesn't look homeless or anything."

She usually shrugs. And I just look, wondering why someone would go through my boring recycling bins.

Until this Monday, when I headed out with an extra bag of trash. As I walked toward him on the sidewalk, he looked up at me and stared.

"Can I ask what you're looking for?" I said.

"Yeah, I like to get the box tops for the kids," he replied. "You know, for schools."

"Oh, really. That's great," I said, kicking myself for being judgmental.

"Yeah, and I get the tabs for the Shriners," he said.

"That's really great," I said. "How long have you been doing this?"

And that's when Paul (and sometimes Kenny and sometimes Jesus Christ because of the reactions he got in a past job as an inspector) told me his amazing story. One day 19 years ago, he went to the hospital to get treatment for an infection. While he was there, he felt some discomfort in his chest. In fact, he was having a silent heart attack.

"I saw a heavy, grey curtain coming down," Paul said. "The doctor told me if I was anywhere else, I wouldn't have made it."

Paul then went to a bigger hospital where he was told he'd have a quadruple bypass surgery. As it turned out, he had a six-way bypass, which, frankly, I didn't know was a thing. The doctor told Paul, who was traditionally stubborn about such things, that he needed to change his lifestyle -- no more greasy food, less sitting around, more exercise.

"I tried a treadmill and a stationary bike, but those were boring," he said. "That's when I started doing this. It's just kind of snowballed."

Every week, Paul (oh, and also "The Can Man" to some kids) goes around to recycling bins in Reading, Wakefield, and Wilmington. He's even started collecting toys for kids, when parents leave them out for him. I got the impression that he likes to talk when people listen. He's probably told the story about his near-death experience -- and the one about the magic toy tea kettle that held 4,109 tabs -- hundreds of times to hundreds of people. But I hope he knows it stuck with me.

Without thinking, we all judge people all the time, don't we? It's human. That guy seems like a jerk. Do you see the outfit that woman is wearing? I wouldn't yell at my kid that way.

Sometimes great things happen when we put judgment aside. Sometimes sympathy and confusion turn into admiration. Sometimes creepy looks turn into smiles. Sometimes you make a connection. And sometimes you hear an incredible story about someone dying.

Thanks for the chat, Paul. See you next week.

A Change of Scenery

Without question, my iPhone is my most important possession. I look at it somewhere between 100 - 150 times every day, and, without it, I'd be lost. It contains my virtual social network, my financial information, and my photos and memories. Put another way, I'd rather lose my wallet 10 times than lose my iPhone once.

So, first, way to go, Apple. You pretty much own me.

Secondly, because the iPhone captures so much of my attention every morning, afternoon, and night, I've become pretty obsessed with changing the wallpaper on a weekly basis. Novelty, after all, unfolds time. If I had the same background image on my phone all the time, I'd get bored.

Because I look at my iPhone so damn much, it's important to keep it fresh and interesting. It's sad, but it's the thing I see more than anything in the world -- more than my wife, more than my daughter, more than my reflection. (It would be really, really odd if I looked at my reflection 150 times every day.)

And this simple change, this photo swap, makes me feel different. Like a new toy or a new discovery, it makes me smile when I'm losing energy on a Tuesday afternoon or I'm walking home from work on a rainy Thursday. It brightens my day. It brings me joy. (And yes, it typically includes the two beautiful gals at the top of the post.)

Facebook photos work the same way. When we change our profile picture or our cover photo, we're presenting ourselves to the world in a different way. We're tweaking our image. It says a lot about who we are. If I post a picture of myself after a race, it means running is a big part of my life. If I post a picture of me with my wife, it's because I want to show her that I love her or maybe that it's an anniversary of some kind. A picture of myself? I may be a family man, but I'm independent and I do whatever I want on Saturday afternoons. (Not true. Ever.)

This week, as I changed my photo to the one you see above, it made me realize just how powerful these images really are. A simple change of scenery can change how the world views you and, more importantly, how you view your life.

How often do you change the background image on your phone? Or on your Facebook page? Have you thought what that says about you? Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Or maybe it makes you smile on a rainy Thursday afternoon.

A Post That Isn't About Annabelle

If you read this blog, you know I've written a lot about my daughter, Annabelle, in the last year. If you look at the photos on my iPhone, you'll find hundreds of Annabelle. Annabelle smiling. Annabelle crying. Annabelle eating. If you could somehow read my mind, almost all of the time, Annabelle would be there.

This, I'd argue, is understandable for a new Dad. And maybe even expected. I have a seven-month-old daughter who I strongly believe is the greatest thing that has ever happened.

But this post isn't about Annabelle; it's about her beautiful mother.

Two weeks ago, in the middle of possible first words, trying to discover new foods, and our first household sickness, Bridget and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary. Two years ago, on March 31, 2012, on a suddenly sunny day in Chatham, MA, I married my best friend and the most wonderful person I've ever known. We celebrated the anniversary with some small gifts and a nice dinner, but the day itself folded quietly into another exciting, stressful week.

And, well, that isn't quite fair.

A year of marriage is a big deal. Whether you've been married one year, two years, 10 years, or 30 years, each one presents its share of joy and sadness. New babies. Bad fights. Promotions at work. Expensive bills. Tropical vacations. Car accidents. They're all part of life and in just two years of marriage, I've realized just how important it is to have the right person by your side.

In a nutshell, I love spending time with Bridget. And as I listened to an old Freakonomics podcast about marriage this week, I was struck by just how important that sentence is. Here's an excerpt from the podcast:

We’ve moved to what economists would call consumption complementarities. We have more time, more money, and so you want to spend it with someone that you’ll enjoy. So, similar interests and passions. We call this the model of hedonic marriage. But really it’s a lot more familiar than that. This is just economists giving a jargon name to love. So you want someone who’s actually remarkably similar to you or has similar passions that you do. 

Our passions don't always align, but they often do. We love music, reading, traveling, Annabelle, and each other. More than that, Bridget makes me feel better when I'm having a tough day and keeps my ego in check when I think I've done something pretty special. She takes care of me, challenges me, cheers for me, and puts me in my place. And she does it all with a delicate touch. I admire and love her more today than I did two years ago. I can't wait to see what the next 60 years bring.

Happy second anniversary, Bridget. I love you so damn much. And, just because it will make you smile, here's a picture of our daughter inside a cardboard box:

Improving the Quality of Our Mornings

I hit the "answer" button on my iPhone in a panic. My shaky "hello," I imagine, sounded more like a nervous shout than a greeting. At first, all I heard was crying. Then, I heard a sentence that hit me with a heavy thud: "I can't do this."

It's interesting when we look back on the moments that make us change -- an unexpected job offer, a brutal hangover, a surprising number on a scale.

Bridget's trembling, overwhelmed voice at 8:30 one weekday morning created a feeling of helplessness I had never experienced. She was crying, Annabelle was wailing, and I was standing in my bedroom in a collared shirt and a pair of boxer briefs. It turned out, as Bridget has already written, to be just a tough moment in time. But it was the tipping point for us to make a change.

That phrase "make a change" has been an abstract idea for most of my life. Maybe you feel the same way. Other than willpower, how do you actually change something? How do you improve something? Thanks to the job I've had for three years, I've discovered a valuable method. It's called the science of improvement and, during the last six weeks, it's helped change our little family's life. More specifically, mornings have never been the same.

Our mornings come down to one simple truth: If Bridget and Annabelle leave by 7:20, everyone is okay. Everyone gets to work on time, traffic is bearable, and stress is under control. If the dawdling duo leaves at 7:25, 7:30, or heaven forbid, even later, panicked phone calls are a distinct possibility. So how could we make sure they left by 7:20 every weekday? The science of improvement! (If you work at IHI and you're reading this, feel free to stop now and make fun of me relentlessly tomorrow.)

First, we needed a goal or, as improvement folks call it, an aim. (Otherwise, how will you know where you're going?) That seemed easy enough for us. We needed to get Bridget and Annabelle out the door by 7:20.

Then we needed some data and some things to measure. What time did they usually leave? What usually made them late? We spent a few weeks tracking the time we all walked out the front door. (I don't leave for work then, but I always carry Annabelle to the car.) Those data points were helpful, but we needed more detail. If we left at 7:20 one day and 7:30 the next, it wasn't clear why there was a 10-minute difference. So we brainstormed and came up with six other things we needed to measure (these are called process measures) to help us understand why we were meeting (or, more correctly, not meeting) our goal:

• Time out of bed
• Time spent pumping
• Time spent in shower
• Time spent feeding Annabelle
• Time spent preparing breakfast
• Time spent getting dressed

We predicted that if we understood how long it took Bridget to do each of these things, we'd have more knowledge about our morning. 

And guess what happened? We've started to see some improvement. Each week, we calculate, the average time out of the house and compare that to our goal of 7:20. During the first week, it was 7:29, then it jumped up to 7:34 (not a good week), and last week, we hit our goal for the first time. (Hooray!) Here's a chart that shows our progress so far:

We still have a lot of work to do. We've hit our goal only once and now we'll have to find a way to sustain the improvement, which is quite difficult. But simply becoming conscious of the process and understanding that we control it has made our mornings much smoother.

And now with this new-found knowledge, we can run some tests -- getting up earlier, showering the night before, setting a time-limit for pumping -- that can help us get out the door by 7:20. (We'll test all these things with a tool called the P-D-S-A  (which stands for plan-do-study-act) cycle, which is as simple as it sounds.) 

Oh, and for those of you who might be picturing me chasing my wife around the apartment with a notebook, yes, that's exactly what happens. But she doesn't mind because she knows we're measuring for improvement and not for judgment. (There's a huge difference!) 

If you want to learn more about this improvement thing, here's a link to a free online course that will take you about an hour. If you don't want to learn more and think I'm a huge nerd for liking this stuff, that's cool, too. 

Six Ways Baby Training Has Transformed Me

All you high school heroes remember the agony of two-a-day workouts. Whether you played football, soccer, basketball, volleyball, or field hockey (lately, I love women's sports), you gutted out two tough sessions in the same day for several weeks. You ran. You lifted. You scrimmaged. You sweat. Basically, you pushed yourself beyond your limits.

I'm adopted that same mentality for baby training.

Baby training, especially during the past two months, has really started to transform me in significant ways. Yes, I'm stockpiling workouts (63 of the last 64 days, according to my Lift app on my iPhone) because I know I won't be able to exercise as much, but the training is about much more than physical activity. I've selected six scenarios, some slightly exagerrated for effect, to show how I've started to change. Using Old Mike and New Mike as the format will help make the comparisons easier. Here goes:

Scenario 1: I wake up after a bad night of restless sleep.

Old Mike: "This is going to to be the worst day of my life. (Sometimes Old Mike was dramatic.) I'm going to be inefficient at work and tired all day. I hate everything."

New Mike: "Yes! An opportunity to show that I can get things done with very little sleep! I'm going to have to get used to this. I'm going for a run!"

Scenario 2: A baby is crying in the apartment next door.

Old Mike: "Hey, good luck with that." (Slams window.)

New Mike: "Bridget, come listen! Do you think the baby is tired or hungry? That sounds like a tired cry to me. Can you believe we have only five weeks to go?"

Scenario 3: A baby is crying in a restaurant.

Old Mike: "Ugh. Seriously? They thought it was a good idea to come to this restaurant right now? Is Burger King closed? Awful."

New Mike: "Isn't that baby cute, hun? How old do you think she is? I wonder if our baby will like pasta. You know, I just read this interesting article about a baby's diet ..."

Scenario 4: We go to visit a friend's baby.

Old Mike: "I guess I'll hold him. I mean, will I break it? I mean him. I'm not really good at babysitting. What if he poops or something? Do I just give him back to you really quickly?"

New Mike: "Let's see if I can get him to stop crying. I really feel like I'm getting the hang of ... what do you mean other people want to hold him?"

Scenario 5: Oscar (our dog) stares at the stove with a tilted head.

Old Mike: "Get out of the way, Oscar."

New Mike: "Oscar, this is called a stove. S-t-o-v-e. Stove. A stove is a hot thing that cooks our food. Never, ever touch it because it's really, really hot. Ouch."

Scenario 6: A quarter mile from home, Bridget says, "I might be a little cold without a sweater."

Old Mike: "You might be? Do you know when you'll know for sure? Why didn't you think about this five minutes ago? Fine. I'll be right back.

New Mike: "Sure thing, sweetie. Do you need anything else? Are you sure you don't want a little snack? Watch how fast I can run."

Will New Mike stick around? I sure hope so. (I think everyone else does, too.)