Who’s Yoh Daddy ... Pete-XR2.2

Salut mon fis et ma fille. Ça marche?

I’ll put today’s post in language that best fits your generation … Pete release dates.

Pete1.0 was launched by Sidney and Ellen Bowyer on Feb. 28, 1955. However, a number of flawed factory settings required that they leave it in a repair shop incubator until the resident geek squad could effect repairs. One month later they brought home Pete1.1. 

Versions 1.2 through 1.16 were launched between 1955 and 1969.
Pete2.0, released in 1969 when a trombone was put in my hand. I had purpose.

Pete-J1, released 1976 when I became a Christian. This was a significant upgrade … my identity was redefined, my purpose strengthened and refocused, and empowerment was introduced into my life (the immediate result was the elimination of a vast number of fears).

P5D5, released 1981 when I first dated Debbie (technically speaking, Debbie4.0) … this upgrade had a dual core.

P5D5 1.0 through 4.22 were released continually through to 2000 to patch cascading critical errors when networked with other units. 

P5D5-4.23, released in Jan.2001, had a catastrophic failure a month later and a back-dated reinstall of Pete-J1 was required until a holistically new operating system could be developed.

Pete-XP, launched in 2004, was an immediate success with a greater capacity and a wider appeal to users. Starting with an air gap to avoid unintentional corruption, the developer introduced controlled network affiliations in vivo, beginning with extensive auto defence / debugging routines. Despite trends in other people, Pete-XP abandoned parallel processing (multitasking) in favour of deeper solutioning and sharper resolutions, while maintaining the advantages of earlier releases Pete-J1 and P5D5.

Following the launch of incrementally sophisticated versions through 2012, Pete-XR1.0 was released when I retired.

The current operational version is Pete-XR2.2.

Clearly, I’m not the Dad that you knew before 2001 … but then, you already knew that. You just might not have known fully how different, or how Pete-XR2.2 fully came to be (don’t you hate it when bad things happen to good sentences?)

Pete-XP series (or Xtra Pete) has been more physically energized, more emotionally connected, more mentally engaged, and more spiritually aligned, than earlier versions. My health is now good, our marriage is now excellent, a great career transitioned into an amazing calling, I am making a difference in the lives of others, and my relationship with the two of you is at an all-life high (so far).

I am more resilient and I have more freedom. I’m free of the minute-to-minute anxiety that used to consume me when I wondered what others thought about me. I’m free of the crippling need to jump through every hoop that everyone puts in front of me. I’m free to put my time into what is important and not just what is urgent. I’m free to coach, mentor, and guide those who want /need it. I’m free to practice the discipline of recovery without guilt and free to do a number of things at a more highly competent level because of the self-imposed constraints, restrictions and limits that once seemed impossible.

I agree with Stephen Covey that the maturity spectrum grows from dependency through independence to interdependence … with the ultimate state being dependable. The emotional states that I assign to each of these ascends from contentment through happiness to joy … with the ultimate emotion being fulfillment. I am fulfilled.

Why are most things better for me now? Because I have a clearer understanding and apprehension of P.I.E. and the glues that hold them together. Because I have put a lot of work into my own personal EM plan … I continue working on personal mitigation, I continue developing my own preparedness plans, I have put some better responses in place, and when I think recovery I always think of it with a mitigative-mindset (how can I recover to a state that is better than where I started?)

God gives us two amazing gifts that I have embraced … gifts which have helped me become effective, productive and fulfilled: choice and process. It took me close to 5 decades to understand the power of these two gifts and where they come from.

The paradox is that the most effective application of choice and process appears to many (most?) to bind us rather than free us. Too few understand Purpose, Identity and Empowerment. Choice and process don’t bind us … they bind the three pillars of P.I.E.

My choice was to make my overarching process like an EM cycle … because it then helps map out everything else.

OK, enough for this week. Let me leave you with a question to ask yourself about your purpose motive. This is an important question that I first learned from Loehr and Schwartz, in their must-read book, “The Power of Full Engagement.”

Do you do what you do because you have a reason to, or do you do what you do because you don’t see a better reason not to?

I’ve learned to do nothing without a reason. This is liberating when I execute it well. I’m miserable when I don’t … and despite what I have learned, I allow vulnerability to continue existing in me and occasionally do things without reason. I’m still a work in progress … but this current release works better than all the previous ones.

I love you guys.

Dad

Sneak peak: Next week starts a new month that I’m calling, “Reel Life Wisdom.”  Each week I’ll choose a different movie title to share powerful bits of enlightenment that shone into my life about a decade ago … providing insights that changed everything for me.