As you tell from recent blogs, I like to make lists of people: who has influenced me and what personality types are my closest relationships have been posting topics this month. This is how I think: in categories, or to use a favorite word of mine, “buckets.”
And so to take my list-making to unprecedented levels of geekiness, I present to you a list of lists: a recounting of people lists I currently keep in my handheld computer.
- people who have helped my wife and me in our adoption process
- people I go to for professional development advice
- people I call in case of various emergencies
- people I would give cabinet positions to if I was the president
- people I would consider to be my closest friends
- people I pray for regularly
- people whose blogs I read
- people who I like to bounce my urban Christian musings off of
- people I turn to for advice and support in my marriage
- people whose careers I respect and who I want to learn from
- people whose careers I want to help develop
If you’re wondering why I keep such lists, it’s because I have a terrible memory and so I use them to remind myself of who’s important to me in different facets of life. (A lot of people say I have a great memory, but it’s a façade; without my PDA, I can’t remember a darn thing. So there.) You might think this cold or inauthentic, but you’re not me. For you, this might be cold or inauthentic; for me, this is the height of valuing people and as authentic as I can get.
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