Kwanzaa Day 7 of 7 |  #Imani  (Faith): Today 2025 is officially behind us. For many, including those in my industry, 2025 was tough. I'm not sure how one deals with the complexities of life (aka 'adulting'), or finds the will to look forward into 2026 confidently, without having Faith as a foundation. To keep my faith strong, I've been part of a men's bible study group for many years. In 2025, when searching for passages for us to study, I've been using AI to help. There are

Kwanzaa Day 6 of 7 | #Kuumba  (Creativity): Believe it or not, before I became a super nerd, I used to write poetry. 🤓 I can't explain what caused my season of poetry-writing back then, nor can I explain why I haven't written any more poetry in the many many years since. But, today's principle made me go back and look thru some of my stuff - I found one I'd written called "When Women Sing" that talks about the beautiful melody of the female voice. It's too long to post on t

Kwanzaa Day 5 of 7 |  #Nia  (Purpose): In 2012, I wrote an article called “ The 3 T’s of Giving Back to the IT Community ”. It was a piece about the intentionality behind giving back to the community - in this case, the IT community.  I was reminded of the article when I thought about Purpose. In the article, one of the things I highlighted was the concept of "Teaching", and I mentioned the year I was a volunteer instructor for a high school STEM/computer competition team (we

Kwanzaa Day 2 of 7 | #Kujichagulia  (Self-Determination): In 2025 I put some thought into how I wanted to "define my path". Spending time thinking about what kind of man and leader and mentor and husband and father I want to be, both in personal and professional spaces. Years ago, I wrote this article: “Everything I Learned About Self-Promotion I Learned from The Princess Bride" (link below). I tried to share light-hearted lessons on confidently owning your narrative and bui

Kwanzaa Day 1 of 7 | #Umoja  (Unity): As I reflected on how I've lived out Umoja in 2025, I think back to my trip to New Orleans to attend this year's national conference for the 100 Black Men of America, Inc.   It was such an overwhelming feeling seeing representatives from different chapters across the country come together to share successes from the year and collaborate on ways to make the organization, and our Community, stronger and more unified. Each of our chapters h