Happy Sunday Everyone:
I took a couple of weeks off. I’ll admit it’s crazy how easy it is to fall off and how hard it is to get back on. Staying consistent is not easy but holy cow is it necessary.
I have an opportunity to do a talk in front of all my friends in a few weeks at our coaching summit, approximately 600 people. I can try to act cool and say “no big deal”, but the truth is it’s probably the biggest talk I have ever done as it relates to wanting to get it right in front of so many people I admire, respect, and care about. I’m realizing it’s much easier to talk in front of strangers than people you know so well. The theme they gave me to discuss is “having it all with life balance, my journey”. I have 30 minutes to summarize where I was 11 years ago before I started coaching, where I am now, some tactics on how I got there, and some key “aha moments” along the way. Summarizing 11 years isn’t easy and when you have a head like mine it’s even worse. BTW-if you ask me if think I “have it all, with life balance”, the answer is absolutely NOT, although certainly better today than ever before.
So enough bragging about me doing this big talk, the main point of Sunday Thoughts today is the importance of looking back, and preferably, having it in writing. Having to do this talk pushed me to pull things out of drawers, ask my team members questions of what I was like 9 years ago, review budgets from 2012, look at pictures, and most importantly, review multiple 5 year visions. I am on a quest, to be less hard on myself, it started with that letter to myself I wrote January 1st of this year. When I take a trip down memory lane, when I look at these 5 year visions that all have some detail around family, personal, financial, faith, love life, health, it’s amazing to see the progression, excuse the language but the sh%t works!!
I think my coaching students think I’m nuts, the first thing I tell them to buy is a laminator. I can only imagine their thought “I just paid X to be told to buy a laminator?”. Anything important to me needs to be documented and laminated. What I’ve added now based on this exercise is putting it in my calendar to review “the drawer” a couple times a year. Anyone can drop by my office now, pull the drawer, and you’ll see 30 or so laminated documents. I have a document from 2009 talking about wanting way less then what I have today (not just money), and I’m thinking “dude, dream bigger, who was that guy?”
Every decent company has documented goals looking forward, why wouldn’t we have those for ourselves? Apple doesn’t sit in a board room and “talk” about their goals 1, 3, or 5 years out, and then not write any of it down with the expectation they’ll just remember it because some person in the room might have had photographic memory. Think how absurd that sounds? So why wouldn’t we treat ourselves with a little more respect and put it down to paper what you want, and then figure out if your daily actions are in alignment with where you want to be going? I think part of the reason I’m feeling better about me being me is I’ve never been in more alignment with living my life in accordance with my vision for myself. Trust me, I’m still a mess (and I love that about me) but being able to look back memory lane to see progress is being made gives me the confidence and pleasure to continue forward.
Have a great rest of your Sunday!