Time, the Divine, and Fateful Decisions

August 1, 2025

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Five years ago.

At one point in my life, five years was an eternity. High school was less than that, and many of us can recall the seeming endlessness of those four years.

Now, it feels like a proverbial blip on the radar. Or at least the last five years have felt like that.

And so we come to a fairly significant milestone…

The Decisions Before the Decision

It was just over six years ago that my wife and I decided to move to Ames, Iowa. We never intended to spend all our lives in Nebraska. Yet, after growing up, going to school, and then investing 20 years of my career in the state, there we were.

Our boys had both gone overseas and we were empty-nesters. So we decided to do “something different.” At first we started looking at international schools abroad, as, after having lived in Israel at the World Centre for the Bahá’í Faith for a year of service after high school, serving internationally had been a dream of mine. But our oldest, a freshman at university in Nebraska, asked that we stay closer–a nice sentiment coming from a 19-year-old young man. He requested that we confine our search to Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado. So we did.

The timeline for the interview was such that it felt completely guided by the Divine. From slipping the interview in between a trip to Colombia (the country) and Dallas (also a country, but in a different way!) to a whole host of other confirmations, when the offer came through, it simply felt right. So we picked up and moved. To Ames.

More Decisions Before the Decision

In hindsight, from the very first day on the new job, there were signs of trouble. I ignored or worked around them until I just couldn’t anymore. It finally became clear that the way my boss wanted me to treat people was not how I believe people should be treated. So I informed them that I would be leaving at the end of my contract. And thus started a cascade of additional decisions.

Head-hunters called. I applied for a number of jobs. Some offered me the job.

But none felt right, and after the experience of moving to an entirely new state and into a toxic culture, I was picky.

After what was, also in hindsight, the last offer, my wife and I sat down to pray–our typical custom when making a big decision.

What were we praying for? It was a binary decision: To take the job or to keep looking and applying.

But God had a different answer, and it was clear as day, “Stop looking for a different job. You’ve been toying around with writing your book and sharing your knowledge and skills more broadly. Stop playing around and do it. Full-time.”

Those Five Years

This summer marks five years since then. Our back-up plan was, “well, if it doesn’t work out, we can always start applying again in the spring.”

Fortunately, we haven’t had to. Instead, I get to work with incredible educators all over this country, almost every day of the week. I get to impact leaders and teachers, cultures and system, all in the service of improved student learning. Most of that work is in serving the PLC at Work® process through Solution Tree (I wrote about the process of becoming an associate HERE), though some is directly with schools on my own.

And so it is that five years have just flown by. In the middle of a global pandemic where travel was limited, we decided to start a business where travel was a cornerstone. I’ve since been on some six or seven hundred flights covering half a million miles. Yeah, time has literally flown by.

While none of us know what the next five years will entail, that fateful decision to move to Ames, followed by everything that came from it– leading up to pursuing consulting–was a turning point, to be sure. And the blessings continue to flow.

Reflective Questions

What are some decisions that you have made that, at the time or looking back, were a turning point?
What sorts of back-up plans have you had in place when making a decision?
When have you made a seemingly bad decision that, in the fullness of time, revealed wisdom that you would not have seen otherwise?

Rib Review

The good folks of Blevins, Arkansas alerted me to a couple of barbecue joints in Hope when I was there a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, I was there long enough to give both a try: Big Mac’s and Big Jake’s. Both were excellent. I had Big Mac’s for supper, and what I was blown away by was the sides. The mac’n’cheese was some of the best I’ve had, and the beans and coleslaw were perfect (slightly sweet) for my taste. Big Jake’s was lunch, and while the sides were delish, the tender ribs truly were the star with a slightly smoky flavor and no need for sauce (though the sauce was quite good). And I was told to have a fried pie, so peach it was. Needless to say, the scale was not my friend when I returned home.