"Think different."

I came across the Wikipedia article for Apple's "Think different" ad slogan from back in 1997.  It resonated with me, so I thought I would post it here:

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

On Perception...

We all see life's experiences through a different lens. For those that clear the smudges, tilt the angle, take a deep breath and have a closer look... every one of them is an opportunity.

A Belated New Year's Resolution (If You Want to Call It That)

It's hard to believe we're already a month into 2011.  Time flies.

I didn't put a whole lot of thought into coming up with a New Year's resolution this year.  Come to think of it, I seldom (if ever) have.  After mulling it over here and there for a little over the last month, I think I've come to the conclusion that I'm making a personal resolution to myself to "have fun".  To me, it means living every day with an attitude of enthusiasm, an appreciation for life, and a zealous approach to exploring what interests me the most, challenges me the most, and leaves me going to sleep at night feeling like it was a day well-spent.  It means being true to myself, being genuine to those around me, and taking life as it comes with a smile and vigor for making it the best I can - regardless of circumstances.

I hesitate in calling it a New Year's resolution, since I think it's something I've decided for myself for the rest of my life.  Perhaps it's more appropriate to call it a credo.

Off the top of my head, here are some of the "have funs" I plan for myself (in no particular order):

• "Have fun" giving and sharing.
• "Have fun" spending time doing what I enjoy.
• "Have fun" helping others.
• "Have fun" being with people I enjoy being around.
• "Have fun" learning from others.
• "Have fun" making the most of each day.
• "Have fun" being true to myself.
• "Have fun" making a positive impact.
• "Have fun" being genuine to others.
• "Have fun" experiencing life's surprises.
• "Have fun" challenging myself and growing as a person.
• "Have fun" traveling, seeing, and experiencing the world.
• "Have fun" building something of which I am proud.
• "Have fun" taking risks and learning from them.
• "Have fun" improving in everything I do.
• "Have fun" putting it all out on the field.
• "Have fun" relaxing and enjoying time with friends and family.
• "Have fun" setting a positive example for others.
• "Have fun" meeting new people and reconnecting with old friends.
• "Have fun" doing what I do well.

"People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing." - Dale Carnegie

A Great Weekend in Seattle Sports

For the first time in a long time, the collective Seattle sports scene was one to remember.  The Huskies football team, Huskies basketball team, and the Seattle Seahawks ran the table against their respective opponents.

• Seattle Seahawks - 31-14 (over the Carolina Panthers, getting to 6-6 on the season and sharing an NFC West division lead with the St. Louis Rams)
• UW basketball - 108 - 79 (over the Texas Tech Red Raiders to improve to 5-2 on the season and continue their win streak since returning from the Maui Invitational following loses to Kentucky and MSU)
• UW football - 35 - 28 (over the WSU Cougars in the Apple Cup to improve their record to 6-6, become bowl eligible, and finish third in the Pac-10 behind #1 Oregon and #4 Stanford)

The Huskies are on their way to their first bowl game since losing to the Purdue Boilermakers in the 2002 Sun Bowl.  They'll be playing against the Nebraska Cornhuskers, to whom they lost badly in the third game of this season 56 - 21.  Let's hope they put up a better fight in Jake Locker's final game in a Husky uniform.

It's tough to look at this and think positively about a .500 record for the Hawks and Huskies, but so it's gone with the Seattle sports scene over the last few years.  Hopefully, at some point in my lifetime, I'll be shelling out for tickets to a major sports championship and seeing Seattle take home some hardware...

On Adversity...

I don't wish upon it nor in some cases can it be denied, but when it arrives, the only thing I can do is face it head on and learn from the experience it returns. Adversity makes life real. It reveals who we are and breaks down life to only that which really means anything at all.

The Next Stage in My Career

Note:  After six years at Deloitte, I decided to accept a position at Teleion Consulting.  This post details the decision-making process that brought me to where I am now and the thoughts I have in looking back at my career at Deloitte.

After six years at Deloitte (one as an intern and five full-time), I announced my imminent departure.  As of next Tuesday, I will officially be taking on the position of Practice Lead at a small, Seattle-based company called Teleion Consulting.  While continuing on with many of the day-to-day consulting responsibilities I have performed up this point, I will also put forth many of my efforts toward leading the company's growing risk and compliance practice.

It's certainly with mixed emotions.  I've put forth so much time and energy into my career at Deloitte, and built such strong relationships with those along the way.  And now, I am moving on and starting anew.  It was a surprise to me as it was to many others.  I wasn't actively seeking a career change and didn't have an intent to leave the firm anytime soon, but after some long discussions with my family and closest friends, I came to the difficult but definitive conclusion that this opportunity just made too much sense and I decided to make it a reality.

My Early Deloitte Days

I started my career with Deloitte as a summer intern in July of 2004.  I was a junior in the University of Washington's Foster School of Business at the time, eager to make my mark on the world.  After attending the annual internship training in Scottsdale, Arizona, along with hundreds of other soon-to-be interns, I was quickly on a flight to Beaverton, Oregon, setting the stage for the first of many out-of-town consulting projects that would shape my well-traveled tenure.

The summer internship went great.  In fact, it was probably just about as good of an experience as for which one could have asked.  I was a big sports fan, staffed at Nike World Headquarters, and working hard on an enterprise project to prepare the company for its first year of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.  By the end of the summer, I'd received an enticing offer letter to start with Deloitte's Enterprise Risk Services group as a new-hire consultant in July 2005.  It was a no-brainer.

"Best Places to Launch A Career"

2005 happened to be the same year BusinessWeek began its "50 Best Places to Launch a Career".  The results between 2005 to present:

• Deloitte's 2005 Rank - #3
• Deloitte's 2006 Rank - #3
• Deloitte's 2007 Rank - #1
• Deloitte's 2008 Rank - #2
• Deloitte's 2009 Rank - #1

It's no shock in my mind that Deloitte sits atop or amongst the top of this list, year after year.  My experiences and opportunities with the firm have been irreplaceable.  Whether it was the insider's view of all the diverse clientele I served over the years, the talent and work ethic of my fellow colleagues, or the many adventures I made to destinations I never imagined (or would have bothered for that matter) to see in my life... I view my time spent at Deloitte as a great learning experience and certainly a catalyst for whatever may lie ahead.  Yes, of course there were a fair share of ups and downs.  Sometimes, work is work.  But, in the end, I recognize that I would not be where I am today had I not taken on the challenges and opportunities I faced at Deloitte with a positive and engaging attitude.

The Road to Now

My Deloitte career was largely impacted by the rise of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.  In the same year I started, on the heels of the downfall of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and others, much of the U.S. corporate world was required to bring in boatloads of resources -- I was one of them -- to help in addressing one of the biggest changes in the history of U.S. corporations.  I spent many of my early days carrying out SOX readiness and audit engagements at various companies seeking our risk and internal controls expertise.

In tandem with fact-finding and documenting internal control procedures, I also had my hand in a number of exploratory data analysis projects as part of a newly-formed practice called Data Quality & Integrity (DQI).  Local and national leadership had high hopes for this service offering, and it did grow to an extent, but I would find my efforts to get on more DQI projects something that would continue throughout my five years.

A good part of my last few years, coincidentally in-line with my promotion to senior consultant, were spent being a key member of another newly-formed practice called Interactive Advertising Services.  In this capacity, Deloitte was engaged by the Media Rating Council (MRC) to perform assessments of various online publishers, agencies, and third-party ad serving organizations seeking MRC impression and click accreditation.

Each of these stages in my career taught me something different and I'm thankful for that.

My Next Adventure

In just a few more days, I will officially begin working for Teleion Consulting.  It will certainly be a big change, most notably with regards to the size of the company.  I'll be going from a global corporation with 160,000+ employees that was started in 1845, to a two-and-a-half year old, Seattle-based company with approximately 30 employees.  While I think that much of my experience at Deloitte will translate very well to my work at Teleion, I'm certain that I will need to grow in many different ways -- which is, in fact, one of the biggest reasons I decided to leave.

I'm excited to start, what I believe to be, a great new opportunity.  I see it as a chance to grow, make a big impact on the company for which I work, and learn closely from others who have started and sustained a successful company.  I'll certainly miss my time at Deloitte and those I have worked with over the past six years.

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Clients Served, Trainings Attended, and Places Visited During My Time at Deloitte:

• AOL (Ashburn, VA)
• Attachmate WRQ (Boise, ID, Atlanta, GA, San Diego, CA, Miami, FL, Pittsburgh, PA)
• Avista (Spokane, WA)
• Barrick Gold (Round Mountain, NV, Salt Lake City, UT)
• Beneficial Life (Salt Lake City, UT)
• Blue Nile (Seattle, WA)
• Gala-Net (Seattle, WA)
• iMergent (Orem, UT, San Diego, CA, Kansas City, MS)
• Louisiana-Pacific (Portland, OR)
• Mervyn's (Oakland, CA)
• Microsoft (Bellevue and Redmond, WA)
• Nike (Beaverton, OR)
• Nordstrom (Seattle, WA, Denver, CO, Des Moines, IA)
• Regence (Salt Lake City, UT, Lewiston, ID, Portland, OR, Burlington and Tacoma, WA)
• Starbucks (Seattle, WA)
• T-Mobile (Bellevue, WA)
• United Bank of Wyoming (Jackson, WY)
• Utah Retirement Services (Salt Lake City, UT)
• Weyerhauser (Federal Way, WA)

• Trainings (San Francisco and Santa Cruz, CA, Reno, NV, Dallas, TX, Scottsdale, AZ, New York, NY, Chicago, IL)

Some of My Fondest Memories:

• Living at and serving on a gold mining client (in the middle of the Nevada dessert, quite a ways past "Area 51")
• Bearing two separate snow storms in Spokane and Denver
• Seeing three accidents during a late-night Sunday taxi-ride between the Portland International Airport and my hotel
• Having a woman faint on me on a Sunday evening flight to Oakland
• Sitting next to Nordstrom executives in first class, en route to San Francisco
• Shaking Pedro Martinez's hand in Miami's South Beach
• Eating at Oklahoma Joe's, a gas-station BBQ gem, in Kansas City, Missouri
• Being sternly told not to wear "Brand X" while shooting hoops at Nike's World Headquarters
• Seeing Maria Sharapova, Ernie Kent, and Phil Knight on Nike Campus
• Learning the ins and outs of Sea-Tac Airport (amongst others)
• Spending a weekend in DC and Fredrick, MD with close and distant family
• Visiting a diamond fulfillment center
• Helping a distraught foreign student find her host family
• Deloitte's Seattle office at the Fourth & Madison Building
• Working with my brother Kevin
• "Racing" down the airport moving walkway -- I was in a hurry and the little kid I "raced" didn't read the "walk left/stand right" sign
• Impromptu karaoke sessions in the Seattle DQI Lab
• The early Underdog Football days
• Crossing paths with Steve Ballmer at the Microsoft Commons

Quotes That Stuck with Me:

Over the years, I asked a number of Seattle partners for their advice on what it takes to be successful with the firm.  Here are some of the responses I received.

• "Be consistent."
• "As long as you kick ass at your job, you'll do well."
• "Show initiative and be willing to take on responsibility."
• "Always strive for continuous improvement."

Goodbye to "The Kid"

Thanks for the memories Griffey...

I'll always remember Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS versus the NY Yankees.  Edgar's double scores Griffey from first to win 6-5 in the bottom of the eleventh inning -- the greatest game I've ever attended.  It was the year that Griffey saved baseball in Seattle.

"Refuse to lose", 360 degree high-fives, chants of "Ed-gar! Ed-gar!", and blaring horns atop a miracle season.  I'll never forget.

22 seasons, 630 home runs, 1,216 runs batted in, 13 all-star appearances, 10 gold gloves, and 1 life-long baseball fan (amongst millions).