I’m excited and honored you landed on my site. My name is Jay Norton and I am a husband, father, and dreamer. I’m currently attending Western Governors University finishing my Masters in Business Administration.
Over the last twenty years my career has been focused on building, securing, and improving technology solutions for public and private organizations.
Over the last five years, I’ve been focused on creating a culture built on a strong foundation of Trust, Transparency, and Bravery. The challenge isn’t creating the culture, the challenge in influencing people to make a change.
The ability to accept change is not a decision, it is a mindset. It’s one that I know way too well.
HUMAN WATERFALL
My first two decades on this earth can be easily be described as me being a human waterfall. Stick with me on this. Waterfalls are caused by water choosing the way of least resistance. My path was selected by default. My mindset was be careful, don’t take risks, and whatever you do avoid confrontation.
WHAT IS CONFRONTATION
What class did you take in high school to learn about confrontation? Confrontation seemed so unnecessary. If you had a great idea, and it was obviously correct, why would it cause confrontation? You can imagine how much I had to learn after getting married.
Maybe it was my introduction to a world filled with opinions, ideas, and creativity but I felt like I was outgrowing my skin. Life never stopped moving. I was blessed to start a new job providing me more responsibility while also putting family first. Got married to a very strong-minded and beautiful woman, and six months later we were pregnant with our first daughter.
Prior to Ava being born, I completed my Bachelors’s of Science degree in Information Technology. Ava was born and we decided to move from our house in Oregon, closer to my office in Washington. Soon after the move, we were expecting our second daughter Amelia.
So, I’m in my early 30’s, married, two kids, and a great job. Obviously, the waterfall method worked. So long status quo, say hello to the most difficult thing I’ve ever experienced.
So Long Status Quo
OK so I really liked this confrontation thing. So you’re telling me, we don’t need to agree. I may not be right… you may not be right… but we can talk about ideas and come up with the best outcome.
I wish that was the way things went. The key element in coming to the best outcome is learning to influence change. Be a conductor. Work through difficult moments, find roadblocks, create a vision, align with key people (like my wife), and try to not only change their mind but allow yourself to be open-minded.
When I looked at my world it didn’t look “right’. I needed maturing, my relationship needed growth, my work had to change. Everyday seemed so confusing.
If you have trouble with your car you take it to the mechanic. If you have issues in your life your choices are pretty limited. When I talk about issues, I’m referring to the idea you know something needs to change. I couldn’t continue down the same path with who I was.
So what was the most difficult thing I’ve every experienced? Changing me. I needed to say adios to my status quo. But how?
Make That Change
When I was 12 years old Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror was released. I’ve always loved Michael Jackson and more than 25 years later I could still remember the words. But this time, I would follow Michael’s advice.
“I’m gonna make a change for once in my life. It’s gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference, gonna make it right….” This song is about changing yourself. So many people want to point a finger.
Don’t get me wrong. I was by no means perfect. My wife and work still caused many of MY problems. What I needed to learn was how to change. How many of you had great mentors? Other than a friend named Mathew Cackowski, my mentorship was really slim.
So I turned to paper and digital mentors. Books, Ted Talks, Podcasts, stories, movies… anything that would help. It was the most complicated time in my life and I had to start getting it together.
It was 2015 when I was first introduced to TedX. The first TedX I ever watched was delivered by Shawn Anchor and he talked about the happiness advantage. Achor discusses how a positive brain links to better performance. Not only better performance but better everything.
Over the next month, I listened to Shawn Achor’s talk more than 50 times. It was like he hid a message and the more I listened the more likely it would unlock the hidden secret.
Soon I began writing down things I was grateful for. Being vulnerable and letting people know they impacted my life. I stopped listening to sports radio and replaced him with multiple Podcasts.
- Coaching for Leaders
- HBR IdeaCast
- How I Built This
Listening to Podcast wasn’t enough so I began taking classes on iTunes U and that boomeranged back to me adding more Podcasts. There weren’t enough hours in the day to digest all the information.
In 2017 I accomplished my goal to read 10 books. 2018 I succeeded at reading 20. At the end of 2018, I was introduced to audiobooks and it propelled me to finish 83 books in 2019.
Why is all of this important? Because I would not be here, writing blogs about what I’ve learned, experienced, or plan to experience unless I found the buried treasure hidden within me. Sure that sounds a little odd but, when you go on a personal exploration you need to be prepared to find things you don’t understand. Each time you find a hidden gem you need to search further inside yourself to discover more. As you work on yourself you’ll find breadcrumbs but instead of leading you home from your exploration it pushes you further toward the next treasure.
At some point in your life you’ll think to yourself, you wish you began the search earlier. Hopefully, you never get to a point where you think it’s too late. The best time to start anything is ten years ago. The second best time… is today.
