Welcome to Between Meetings & Meals
On pivoting, building, and aligning work with home.
My life has not followed a straight line.
Not because I lacked direction, but because I kept evolving.
I have set real targets. I chased them hard. I achieved them. More than once, I arrived where I planned to be and realized it was not the forever path.
That was not failure. It was clarity.
Engineering taught me how to break down problems, solve them, and manage projects. Teaching and coaching sharpened how I communicate and motivate. Creative work opened my mind and scratched an itch I did not even know was there. Entrepreneurship taught me ownership, how to fail fast, how to build community, and how to create connections. Looking back, I was working in economic development without even knowing it. Economic development eventually showed me how government works from the inside and tied what once looked like a windy path into a career that makes sense.
I have reinvented myself more than once. I have stacked credentials along the way. An engineering degree. Teaching certifications. Marketing certifications. Certified Public Manager. I am one month away from becoming a Certified Texas Economic Developer.
Always learning. Always growing. Always evolving.
My fire has never been the problem.
What changed over time was how I thought about trajectory.
I started paying attention to how my work affected my home. How stress followed me through the door. How success changed my energy as a father. How growth in one area sharpened the other.
Work and home are not separate worlds. They influence each other every day whether we admit it or not.
The better I become at work, the better I show up at home. The better I show up at home, the clearer and stronger I lead at work.
Between Meetings & Meals is where I document that integration in real time.
I am building life on purpose. At work. At home. Everywhere in between.
This is not a corporate leadership blog. It is not therapy. It is not self help fluff.
It is a field journal.
Each week I will share something real I am navigating and something practical I am testing. A system. A decision. A recalibration. A skill. A conversation.
At the end of one year of Between Meetings & Meals, we should be more intentional.
Clearer about where we are going.
More willing to pivot when it is time.
More aligned at work and at home.
I expect to be better because of this. I hope you are too.
Take what is useful. Test it. Make it your own.
Let’s build.
Daniel
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