Welcome to The Glass Half Full Report!
That’s a strange thing for me to say because I am actually a veteran blogger (in more ways than one), but this is a brand new forum with a completely new perspective. Having said that, I think a little bit of back story is in order on this inaugural post…
I spent 11 years in the U.S. Army, and from 2005 until 2006 I was deployed to the Sunni Triangle, that dangerous circle in the sand of Babylon. During that life-changing year, I ran a military blog called Wordsmith at War. At first, my family and friends were the only ones reading, which was fine with me. Before long, word spread, and some of the family members of my 600-member unit began to read, and then a reporter from back home did a story on the blog, and it took off. Within a couple of months of my tour, I was contacted by the New York Times and asked to write from Iraq as part of a blog called Frontlines.
This was a great experience and drove even more interest in my military blog. Because of the writing I did on the blog, and for other online publications, I was asked to contribute to five different anthologies about the war. I was also featured on NPR and in Time magazine after returning home, not to mention being contacted and represented by a major literary agency in New York. I had been an aspiring writer even before I left the Army, so this was a dream come true. I ended up leaving the military a couple of years after my tour, to focus on my family and my budding writing career.
Since that time, I have written thousands of pages of material for clients, coached veterans, corporate executives and government employees from around the world, and written or co-written five more books. I’m just getting started, and my best work and days are yet before me. I did maintain Wordsmith at War for a few more years, but eventually it just didn’t feel like a “military blog” anymore, since I was out of the Army and working on different aspects of my life. I eventually shut it down, but I have to admit I missed the instant publishing satisfaction and reader interaction that comes from blogging.
There’s a bit of background, and now we come to this new blog…
As I look around at our modern society, I can’t help but notice the collective focus on negativity and “what’s wrong with the world.” I have certainly focused on those things too much myself. But I’ve been through the fire, and my own life journey has given me a new appreciation for every moment I have. Since returning home from the war and dealing with my own post-traumatic stress, I have slowly but surely moved into Post Traumatic Growth. You can read more about my story in the “Meet Lee” tab. You can also check out some of the writing I did in Iraq at the bottom of the Books tab or in my book Fire in the Night.
Whether they are struggling with life or seemingly soaring toward their destiny, human beings are amazing and complex creatures. I have become as fascinated with my own inner and outer journeys as I am with everyone else’s. I will write about a range of topics here, and share many insights and tools that I’ve learned over the years to help you live more fully and find more meaning. But the point is that, as the name implies, I really do believe that the glass is half full.
We get enough bad news, don’t we? In fact, we’re surrounded by it and spoon fed bad news in the media 24/7. You you won’t find any here…
No, as one voice in 7 billion, this is a forum in which I will share my own unique perspectives, try to inspire and entertain, continually become more open and vulnerable, and help spread the love and light that we need so badly in this crazy, wonderful 21st century.