Friday, January 21

3:42am

Woken by a phone call. Social worker. There’s a baby girl being discharged from the hospital right now. She wants to know if we can take her.

Because I’m still drowsy, I don’t think to ask, why on earth are they discharging in the middle of the night!? I tell her that I need to make a phone call to find out if we can care for another child.

Normally, I would just say yes. This is exactly the situation that Skookum Kids is designed to help with — innocent foster child with nowhere to go, inconvenient time of day. This is our wheelhouse. But we already have 4 kids at the house from 3 different families, and one of them is a handful.

I call Abby, our Program Manager, to discuss our options. We check the volunteer schedule to figure out who could lend a hand if needed and decide to say yes knowing that I’ll need to move around a couple meetings to lend a hand at the house in the morning.

I write to our volunteer team explaining how we came to our decision to take in another one. I immediately get back several offers to pickup an extra shift to make it possible.

Since I’m awake, I may as well read a bit. I’m working through Huck’s Raft — A History of American’ Childhood. It’s fantastic.

7:00am

Meeting with a Skookum Kids donor and (potential) business partner. I recently lost my day job in a round of layoffs, and have been exploring how to both keep Skookum running and continue to feed my family. There have been a lot of meetings like this. A lot of attempts to answer the question: So what are you going to do?

I know what want to do. Skookum. That’s where my heart is, and that’s where I want my time and my talents to be also. But we need to grow.

We need to nearly double in size before Skookum could pay a market rate for me. So we talk about a pretty interesting startup idea. It has potential, but it’s a ways off and it’s not Skookum.

8:15am

I arrive at Skookum House. The baby has settled in, and the morning volunteers are overjoyed to be caring for her. One of the volunteers on this shift is a nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the nearest hospital. She’s been caring for this child for the last few days, and is thrilled to be holding her once again here at Skookum. The older kids are playing (relatively) calmly with the toy kitchen. They make sure that I try the bear-shaped pancakes from the real kitchen.

Abby and I gameplan for a moment and decide that I should take 2 of the kids — a 2yo. and a 5yo. — to the doctor. She gets the paperwork together while another volunteer and I get those kids changed out of pajamas and ready to go. I load them up in the van and we’re on our way by 9:30p.

10:00am

How do you keep a 2yo and a 5yo occupied in a doctor’s office lobby? Animal noises, of course. We practice pigs, chickens, and cows. Pigs are the favorite though. While we wait, a Social Worker calls me to check in on the 2yo. He’d come to us under some pretty rough circumstances, and she wanted to check on us. We talked for 15 minutes or so while the little ones alternated between looking at the cars outside, playing tag under the chairs, and spitting at each other. When I realized that last one was happening, I politely excused myself from the phonecall and stepped in. Turns out, spitting is a natural next step from the pig noises.

Yeah I know. I’m still a childcare rookie.

The actual appointment was mostly painless. I did have to restrain the littlest one so we could get a blood pressure reading. He’d never seen a blood pressure cuff before, and you’d thought we were trying to kill him. He screamed, cried, and bit me. But no sooner were we done than he forgot all about it and was right back to having fun.

No matter how many times you have to do it, holding down a child who thinks you’re trying to hurt them is a very emotional experience. You know it needs to happen, but you still feel like a monster for having to do it.

1:20pm

Back home. I finally sit down for lunch. I’ve got 10 minutes before my next meeting — a board meeting.

We’re discussing Skookum’s 5 year plan. We talk about big, important questions like:

• How soon can we expand to 24/7 coverage and declare the 72-hour problem officially solved?
• Once we do, what is the next service gap we should take on?
• How do we convert this scrappy startup into a community pillar?

There are differences of opinion and big feelings. But this is an important, interesting meeting with people that I love and trust.

4:00pm

2 phonecalls to make before I sit down at my desk to finally attack my task list. One to a Skookum Kids donor who would like an update, and another call to a prospective volunteer who missed our most recent interest meeting.

On my list for today is to fix a couple formating problems on our website, square away the insurance on our new van, schedule all of our marketing messages for the next week, and send a dozen or so thank you notes to folks who have given money to support our work. Every donor gets a hand-written thank you note from us, and I try to write notes to all the first-time-givers myself.

Luckily I don’t have to be back at Skookum until 9pm. That gives me a little time to eat dinner and relax before I ride back over.

9:00pm

Back at Skookum. The youngest (12 days old) and one of the toddlers have departed for what we hope will be their long-term homes. In their place, we’ve welcomed 3 new ones. There are now 6 children in the house. One of our interns is just finishing up the arrival paperwork on them when I arrive. 2 of the kids are already in bed, sleeping soundly. The oldest of the remaining 4 informs me promptly that her bedtime is 10:30p. We play Wii for an hour before she heads to the shower. One of the other volunteers point out a note in one of the files of the newly arrive children that they’re prone to wet the bed. We double-check that the mattress protectors are installed on their beds. They aren’t. We find them and install them. Crisis averted.

The oldest is true to her word, and gets in bed right at 10:30p. All is quiet. Finally.

10:45pm

I collapse into my sleeping bag and try to read, but let’s be honest — it’s not going to happen tonight. I’m out before I get past the first page. It’s a good thing, too. My alarm tomorrow is set for 5:15a.

***

Would you believe this is a part time job? It is.

I’m not complaining. I love this work, and I’m honored to do it. But it just doesn’t pay enough. Until very recently, I’ve had another job that both paid my bills and afforded enough flexibility for me to lead the growth at Skookum.

Now I’m on the job search, but I don’t have to go looking to find the job that I really want to do. This messy, dangerous, complicated work is more fulfilling than anything else I could possibly imagine. But we need to raise another $4,000 per month to pay a full-time Executive Director.

Would you consider supporting the mission and work of Skookum Kids?

SkookumKids.org/give

Goal: 50 books

Actual: 51 books

12 Fiction

• Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham
• Skyship Academy: The Pearl Wars by Nick James
• Plover by Brian Doyle
• Sharpe’s Devil: Richard Sharpe & the Emperor by Bernard Cornwell
• Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich
• Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread by Chuck Palahniuk
• Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton
• My War with Hemingway by James Charles
• Simple Truth by David Baldacci
• The New World by Andrew Motion
• The Message by Panoply (radio drama)
• The Silent Wife by ASA Harrison

Best: Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich
Worst: My War with Hemingway by James Charles

• Read Skyship Academy aloud to our foster kid, and enjoyed it quite a bit more than I expected. Think: Divergent meets the TV show Heroes.
• I love everything I’ve ever read by Brian Doyle except the last third of Plover. It was great until it wasn’t.
• Michael Crichton died before he could finish Pirate Latitudes, and you can tell exactly which chapters he would have improved. It’s good, but it could have been incredible.
• Bull Mountain is a fabulous crime novel. Think: Sons of Anarchy meets Hatfields & McCoys.

17 Business, Leadership & Finance

• Robert’s Rules of Order in Plain and Simple English by Henry Martyn Robert
• Measure What Matters Most by Think with Google
• How to Be Right: The Art of Being Persuasively Correct by Greg Gutfeld
• Principles of Microeconomics by Prof. Jonathan Gruber (Course)
• Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Growth by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares
• The Hard Thing about Hard Things — Building a business when there are no easy answers by Ben Horowitz
• Running a Food Truck for Dummies by Myrick
• Start Your Own Food Truck by Rich Mintzer
• Home Distillers Workbook by Jeff King
• Everybody Writes by Ann Handley
• Think Python by Mark Lutz
• Start Next Now by Bob Pritchett
• SWAT: Systems Working Actively Together by Timothy Johnson
• Zero to One by Peter Theil
• Leader’s Eat Last by Simon Sinek
• How to Get Free Government Grant Money for Almost Anything by Danielle Green
• 400 Things Cops Know: Street-Smart Lessons from a Veteran Patrolman by Adam Plantinga

Best: Traction by Gabriel Weinberg
Worst: How to Be Right: The Art of Being Persuasively Correct by Greg Gutfeld

• I over-read in this category, as per usual.
• Zero to One made me think more than any other book all year, but mostly because I disagree with one of its fundamental assertions, and it took me 8 months to articulate why.
• Gutfeld’s book is more memoir than the title suggests which is disappointing when you pick it up hoping to learn something, you know, helpful.
• Running a food truck or a distillery would be fun, but I think I missed my moment on both of those trends.

5 Ministry & Christian Living

• Relationships: A Mess Worth Making by Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp
• The Connected Child by Karyn B. Purvis & David R Cross
• Succeeding as a Foster Child by Jamie Schwandt
• Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel
• Jesus, Continued: Why the Spirit Inside You is Better than Jesus Beside You by JD Greear

Best: Jesus, Continued: Why the Spirit Inside You is Better than Jesus Beside You by JD Greear
Worst: None. These were all good.

• I picked up the foster care books after we had our first placement (which was a disaster).
• Greear comes from a very similar background as me (WOLBI grad from Raleigh, NC with a heart for mercy ministry), and his books always seem to resonate with me.
• Mating in Captivity is a useful read for anyone who wants to understand a sophisticated, secular perspective on sexuality. The church often addresses a straw man. This book will give you the real thing.

6 Theology & Devotional

• The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis
• The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser
• Reformed Dogmatics by Gerhardus Vos
• William the Baptist by James M. Chaney
• Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller
• Basic Bible Interpretation: A Pratical Guide to Discovering Biblical Truth by Roy B. Zuck

Best: The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser
Worst: William the Baptist by James M. Chaney

• Heiser’s book is making waves throughout the Christian community, and it’s clear to me why. He explains some passages of scripture that the church has historically struggled with and some sectors have even avoided. There’s enough material there to preach about for a full year, and I have no doubt that some pastors will use their Sunday evening services to do just that.
• I read The Four Loves after hearing it referenced in probably half a dozen different sermons. It did not disappoint.

11 History, Biography & Memoir

• Classic American Speeches by Various
• An Hour with Gorge Muller by Charles Parsons
• Turning Points in American History by Edward T. O’Donnell (course)
• The Law of the Land by Akhil Reed Amar
• The Return of George Washington by Edward Larson
• The Atlantic Coast by Daniel Ammen
• 1775: A Good Year for Revolution by Kevin Phillips
• The Wright Brothers by David McCollough
• Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe
• The Life and Diary of David Brainerd by Jonathan Edwards
• Blueprint for Armageddon by Dan Carlin (course)

Best: The Wright Brothers by David McCollough

Worst: The Law of the Land by Akhil Reed Amar

• 2 non-books in this list, both courses. Both were big, but Blueprint for Armageddon was massive and one of the best, most comprehensive treatments of World War I that you’ll ever encounter.
• The Law of the Land wasn’t bad so much as just dense.
• The Wright Brothers will make you want to go invent something. It’s a great American dream story.
• Don’t know why, but I got onto a Revolutionary War / George Washington kick this year.
• Lowe might be a better writer than he is an actor, and he’s a really good actor.

Reading Goals for 2016: 50 books

• 10 Fiction
• 10 Theology
• 10 Kids & Psychology
• 10 History, Biography & Memoir
• 10 Business & Economics

Currently I’m reading Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides, ISIS: The State of Terror by Jessica Stren & J.M. Berger, and The Art of Cross-Examination by Francis Lewis Wellman. Odds are good those will be the first 3 books on my 2016 list.

Conferences bind schools together not just by region, but also by competitive level. This creates a de-facto caste system and makes late-season games between non-contenders uninteresting because they lack meaningful stakes. It is most obvious in college football where we see the Big 5 (SEC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12, and Pac 12) and the Group of 5 (MAC, AAC, Conference USA, Sun Belt, Mountain West).

We have a de-facto caste system.

Each year a group of teams perched atop the Group of 5 seem unable to break into the national championship. This year it’s Temple, Memphis, Houston. In the past it’s been Colorado, Boise State and others. The fastest route for such teams to achieve perennial success on the national stage requires conference realignment. They just cannot achieve

This is a problem unique to college football. Other sports, basketball in particular, with larger tournaments open the door for teams like this to play their way into national prominence. Gonzaga basketball is a great example.

But the structure of college football insulates elite programs from catastrophic failure, and limits the possible success of all others.

Late season games between non-contenders lack meaningful stakes.

Who is tuning in to watch Oregon v. Oregon State next week? Not me.

Auburn v. Alabama?

Georgia v. Georgia Tech?

Maryland v. Rutgers?

Many of these games have a rich history that seem distant and unimportant when this year’s team isn’t competing for a playoff spot or a prestigious bowl invitation.

The solution is an annual end-of-season conference realignment.

Each of the Power 5 conferences would be paired with a Group of 5 counterpart. I propose:

SEC | Sun Belt Conference

ACC | AAC

Big 10 | MAC

Big 12 | Conference USA

Pac 12 | Mountain West

Each season the team ranked lowest in each power 5 conference would be relegated to the corresponding group of 5 conference. And the champion of each group of 5 conference would be promoted to the corresponding power 5 conference. So if the season ended right now, the following teams would switch conferences next year.

South Carolina relegated to Sun Belt Conference.

Arkansas State promoted to the SEC.

Boston College relegated to the AAC.

Navy promoted to the ACC.

Maryland relegated to the MAC.

Bowling Green promoted to the Big 10.

Kansas relegated to Conference USA.

Western Kentucky promoted to the Big 12.

Oregon State relegated to the Mountain West.

San Diego State promoted to the Pac 12.

The impending threat of relegation gives late-season games between bottom-of-bracket teams much more gravity.

The hope of promotion gives rising teams a clear path to break onto the national stage in 2–3 years instead of 5–10.

Obvious Challenges

Tiebreakers would need to be established by each conference. But we break ties at the top of the bracket, so this would be no different.

Schedules could not be set until after re-alignment was completed at the close of each regular season. But this could make excellent fodder for the pundits in the weeks between the close of the regular season and the premier bowls. A schedule reveal show would likely be a ratings darling in the same way the playoff ranking show is now.

Travel could present a problem for recently re-aligned teams especially joining the Big 12 or Big 10. But WVU’s recent move to the Big 12 demonstrates that this is a manageable challenge. Recently realigned teams could be granted more home games than usual to help with competitive balance.

I believe that an annual realignment in the form of promotion and relegation would add an interesting twist to the college football landscape by eliminating the glass ceiling now hindering the success of several up-and coming programs and giving much needed gravity to late-season games between bottom-of-bracket teams.

You want to change the world.

So you’re working weekends, nights, and lunch breaks on a passion project.

But it doesn’t pay the bills, so you’re also working days.

Highfive. Me too.

20 months ago I learned there was a massive service gap in my community’s child welfare system. Children were passed from home-to-home as they transition into the system, sometimes staying in 4 or 5 homes their first week of foster care. It was completely unacceptable, so I set out to close that gap.

I was in a hurry. Every week we waited, more children were being traumatized by the very system setup to help them. It was a mess, and we knew we could fix it. All we needed to do was build a new organization to run a new program staffed by newly trained volunteers. Yeah. That’s all.

So I was motivated. I was also a newlywed. (Very newly. I finished the business plan for Skookum Kids on my honeymoon.)

You hear where this is going?

Spoiler alert. I didn’t burnout, and don’t plan to anytime soon. Thanks to the best advice I’ve ever received on this subject. It came to me from my (day job) boss, Bob Pritchett. And you can find it in his new book Start Next Now. He says:

Don’t risk what you can’t afford to lose.

Everybody wants to change the world until they find out what it costs.

How much sacrifice are you willing to make in order to reach your goals? And maybe more importantly, what sacrifices are you not willing to make?

To reach your goals, would you give up your . . .

Free time?

Day job?

Hobbies?

Savings?

Friendships?

House?

Marriage?

Passion projects are consuming projects. Don’t dive into a passion project until you know with confidence what you’re unwilling to let it push out of your life. If you’re already deep into a passion project, stop right now and make this decision.

When I drew my line, I gave up a lot of sleep, a couple friends, a few hobbies, and any hope of qualifying for the Boston Marathon before I turn thirty (a goal I’ve been working toward for a long time.) But I bought for myself 24 hours a week of time to invest.

Everybody draws this line somewhere. Just figure out where you put it. And then —

Do risk everything else.

Draw your line. Tenaciously guard everything inside it. Let go of everything else.

For example, I rarely sleep more than 6 hours a night. I’m up every morning at 5am sharp, and put in at least 2 hours of work before I get to the office. And every Friday night, I squeeze in another 4–6 working hours. By making those sacrifices, I buy myself roughly 24 hours — the equivalent of 3 extra work days — every single week.

But I never miss College GameDay. My saturday morning college football ritual is sacred. I refused to risk it.

Draw your line, and invite your passion project to occupy every square inch outside it.

You need time and emotional energy to pour into your passion project. You can’t afford any slow leaks.

Slow leaks of time and energy lead eventually to burnout. It’s the result of trying to change the world without making world-changing sacrifices. Make sure you’re sacrificing the right things, then sacrifice with gusto.

Make your sacrifices and then put your head on your pillow assured that you are protecting and risking the right things. (Unless sleep was one of the things you decided to risk. In that case, what are you doing? Get up and get back to work!)

One more thing.

Be seen.

When you moonlight, especially on something that you care deeply about, it’s impossible to build a firewall between your day job and your passion project. The two will overlap and intersect.

You’re successes in one arena will give you confidence in the other.

Your failures in one arena will make you more cautious in the other.

Does anyone see the entirety of your life and all of its intersecting parts? Sure there are people who see a slice of your world, but does anyone have the whole picture?

If the answer is no, find someone right now.

You need to invite someone with knowledge of where you drew your line to help you maintain it.

I have a couple of these people in my life, and they help immensely. On a number of occasions they have sounded the alarm when I was risking something I decided to protect, or protecting something I decided to risk.

A serial intrapreneur, Ray Deck III has a decade of experience inciting change from within complex organizations. He works on Experimental Projects at Faithlife, and leads Skookum Kids, a not-for-profit that cares for children in their first 72 hours of foster care. When he’s not wrestling with bureaucracy, you can find him running, surfing, or backpacking through the Cascades. But you should go look for him. He has a terrible sense of direction, and is probably lost.

The end of Planned Parenthood will do nothing to address the demand for abortion, but will temporarily make the supply more expensive and dangerous. Given the risks and costs, many unprepared mothers across the country will keep the children they are admittedly unable to care for.

By picketing and protesting and seeking the end of Planned Parenthood, you are trying to make more foster children. If you’re not helping to care for those children, I find your outrage hypocritical.

Why don’t you lend a hand before you share that new video.