Adam McLane

Tag: illustration

  • Four Fresh Winds

    There’s nothing quite as invigorating as a deep breath of fresh air.  As a kid I was highly allergic to cats. When I visited someone’s home who had cats my eyes would itch immediately. Then the wheezing would begin. The final step was a very labored, forced filling of my lungs, which always resulted in…

  • Hold the reigns tightly

    I’ll never forget the first time I rode a horse.  Growing up in the city meant that horses just weren’t part of my life. I remember seeing horses as a kid at parades. At the county fair in the horse barns. Or occasionally at big football game when the police brought in horses for crowd control. And…

  • Be Intent

    The last seven weeks I’ve had laser focus on one thing: Be ready for September 1st.  Buy office equipment. Set-up a home office. Lease part-time office space. Create financial systems. Set-up a business infrastructure. Write business plans. Write marketing plans. Lay the groundwork to build a customer base. Write proposals. Sign contracts. Get consulting. And…

  • How we got here is not how we get out of here

    In 1995, I got a job running some machinery on nights and weekends for a large health care company. I was a college student and it was a perfect job for me. It was boring and I could do my homework.  I had free reign to the 29th floor of a Chicago skyscraper until 6:00…

  • Weeds

    The last couple of weeks have been stressful. Work stuff piled up as an ever growing to-do list was at war with two very firm deadlines. Stress built, tension built, and I was an emotional wreck. One day last week I started working at 6:00 am and largely sat in the same place steadily working…

  • Manage Acceleration or Acceleration Manages You

    Back in college I had a job managing a group of machine operators. Part of my job was to make sure that the materials for the equipment were easily available to my team so that they could keep the machines running as much as possible. I taught my team to think of the machine as a cash…

  • Shut up and drive

    People are showing up and I have a million things running through my mind. Do I have all of my personal stuff? Do I have all of the stuff we need that the church needs to bring? Are all of my leaders here? Did I double check fuel levels? What about oil changes, we good…

  • Pressing Play on Life

    I woke up thinking about this song. Flashback to the 90s, right? In so many ways life has felt like it was on pause since September when I went to LA for convention. I’ve just been consumed by work. It swallowed me. And yesterday brought so much release. (Er, if the illustration of “swallowed by…