There are certain moments in your life where a little switch flips and you suddenly get very clear on the things you need to do to get where you want to go.
This happened for me in mid-2007. Our family had just taken a long-overdue vacation to Paris. Jenni was 5 months pregnant, so the trip was a blast but exhausting for her. Our two older kids were ready to jump back into their daily routines of library, museums, and walking all over D.C. to get their culture fix.
For me, it was back to the office. Yawn. As Director of Operations at a litigation graphics firm, I had a huge responsibility and some very intense days, but especially after our Paris trip I felt increasingly disconnected with anything that resembled motivation. I was bored. I was making great money, but I hope we all agree now that making gobs of money without a real purpose is boring.
I knew I wanted to get out of there and do those awesome creative things I had always dreamed of. Illustration, coaching, teaching, and helping other creative people deal with their haphazard lives and businesses.
It was all in my noodle but so very distant in reality.
Sitting on the couch, eating Soy Dream, watching movies every night and checking my Blackberry wasn’t getting me very far. So I started staying up later, working on stuff that would get me where I wanted to go. After a 14-hour day. Making time after Jenni went to bed after Soy Dream time, or skipping the Soy Dream altogether.
So here I am. I mean, I’m here now. I’m where I wanted to be when I dreamt of awesomeness on that return flight across the Atlantic.
Of course I’m not done. No way. Now I have bigger fish to fry, better ways of helping people and certainly more art up my sleeve. I’ve got plans for that.
But I still need help with that.
In the meantime, I’ve started reading some very cool stuff from Dave Navarro (not that Dave Navarro). Dave is a master at internet launches, and his aptly titled Launch Coach site is simply brimming with the kind of get-your-ass-off-that-couch speak that works for me.
I need a kick in the ass every so often, too. It helps to have somebody push you and I don’t mind having a few somebodies like Dave. Havi. Naomi. Mark. Jenni. Henri. Jacob. Gwendolyn. Libby. Dave (a different Dave).
That’s a lot of somebodies in my corner. At least two Daves.
The Somebody named Dave has just created this excellent series of posts and free workbooks to help people (ahem, me) move up to the next level. I just read it this morning and I’m posting this now because it really spoke to me. Here’s a little piece of the post that resonated for me:
You have tons and tons of time to invest in yourself, but you’re just not doing it. Seriously, I wasn’t kidding when I told you to put LOST on your TiVo instead of watching it live. You have pockets of time you’re not leveraging everywhere – TV, web surfing, lunch, 30 minutes before bed / before work … if you were committed, you’d make the time happen.
Guilty as charged. Tweetdeck is open on my desktop WAY more than it needs to be. So I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me that needs to hear this stuff. It’s possible. But I’m betting you might get something out of it, too, which is why I’m posting this today. A while back I wrote about Freeway Pro 5.0 (how I created most of my web site) because I just love it. Love. It.
I just love this. And, I know Dave personally so it’s not like he’s really a group of small children in an abandoned warehouse clacking away on tiny laptops. Nope, he’s a real dude and a helluva nice guy.
So I really liked this first installment of what looks like a pretty cool deal. I read through it this morning. I admit that the post is very long, which might be my only niggle here. I tend to skim over things that are very long, even with my big monitor. This time I consciously spent some real time reading every word. It took a while. I had to take a break and go back.
But it’s awesome. Check out his post: 7 Ways to Play a Bigger Game (with Free Workbook).
That’s it. Go read. Let me know what you think, but I’m sure I can’t be the only one who loves Dave’s stuff.
