by JimRaffel on October 17, 2010
Have you ever been so wrapped up in your own little world that you feel like you missed something? I had just this feeling on a recent flight. So, I stopped writing, closed my MacBook, took my ear buds out and had an hour long conversation with the woman sitting next to me.
Social media is real, but I’ll take a conversation face to face with another carbon based life form over Twitter every time. The presentation, blog post or proposal I was working on would keep.
Nancy and I talked about business, families, kids, spouses, cooking, wine, parents – you get the picture, we talked about life. It was a nice break in the middle of a “me centered” week. A reconnection with the human me vs the machine that lives and functions a week at a time on the road.
So, next time you get that feeling that you’re missing something – stop and take a look around. That someone or something may be as close as the airplane seat or coffee shop table next to you.
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by JimRaffel on February 24, 2010
Do you have breakthrough days? I woke yesterday morning just knowing it was going to be a breakthrough day.
Since writing about radical thinking about a month ago I have been busting my butt and hustling to put systems in place so that my life and my business do not need me all day everyday. It’s been a lot of hard work. It’s been all I’ve wanted to work on and at times there have been plenty of distractions that have frustrated me.
Yesterday, started with an awesome one hour conversation with my wife Cheryl about topics that mater to our family. The deep heavy stuff that normally has the word argument attached to it. The net result is a better marriage and a better family. Great start to the day, next?
I hid out at a coffee shop and in about an hour pounded out the first draft of an e-mail newsletter for you guys. (I’ve been meaning to do this for weeks – OK a month and a half.) Spent some time thinking about ways to make sure you guys never have to wait that long again. Next?
I met an incredible bunch of Milwaukee Twitter people for late breakfast/early lunch. Had a professional journalist ask me questions/advice about blogging – yes, you read that right. Talk about humbling moments. I’m just a guy who sells dreams a few times a year and writes a blog about it as often as I can. Next?
Back in my office for a Skype call with a strategic business partner. Excellent productive conversation during which we realized I will be minutes from his business partner the next few days – sounds like Dinner plans to me. Next?
Finished and blasted my e-mail newsletter to you guys while taking care of getting a few things ready for FedEx. Got positive email and blog comments within minutes of sending the email – thanks guys! Next?
One hour drive to have dinner with key man at our largest customer. We’ve become friends over the 18 months working together and that friendship grew last night – remember people do business with people they like. Oh, and he gave verbal acceptance to a very significantly sized proposal. He also green lighted a meeting in a couple weeks to talk about future work. Next?
Drove the hour home thinking about what an amazing single day it had been. In that moment I realized it had been an amazing month – I’d broken through another ceiling – raised my life to a new plateau. It didn’t happen in one day it was just realized in one day.
Do you have days that you think of as just off the charts fantastic and when you look back you realize it’s simply the culmination of weeks, months or even years of hard work?
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