Originally posted on Facebook HERE
When you have twelve balls in the air and two hands — no matter how good you are at juggling — at some point a ball will hit the ground, right? It can be unsettling. I tend to live my life like that. I bring it on myself, I know. The business I run demands constant attention. Most of my time is spent there. I love it, you know? We help people in meaningful ways every single day. And at this point in my 20th year running that business — it’s not just “people” to me. It’s people I know well. It’s friends and family and people I love. And I thank God every day to be in the position I’m in. I know what debt feels like. I know what it feels like when someone close to you dies, or gets hurt, or has to move to senior or assisted living, or a nursing home. Or when you experience an unexpected job change. Or a plethora of other things, including wondering about retirement, saving for kids and grandkids, marriage/divorce — life is full of emotional and vulnerable events. Being a financial advisor is like seemingly 5% numbers and 95% dealing with the emotions surrounding life in general. I love it. From day one, our business plan hasn’t wavered — this is it: “meet people and care about them”. We see as many people as possible. We have a deep concern for their well being. We do what we can to help. To me, that business plan would work for almost any business. It’s the only way I know of to do business. It’s a great way to do life, really — meet as many people as you can. Do anything you can to help them. Zig Ziglar has a famous quote: “You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want”. Certainly rings true to me. But I’ve digressed pretty far from where I’m heading with this post, so… because I love what I do, and I’ve been doing it a long time — that business takes a lot of time to run. And it’s not the only thing I have going on, either. I’m also playing bass with Pink Houses. From May through September we play almost every weekend. But playing in a band is way more than that — from January through April we work on putting the show together. Gotta get nine people on the same page, right? No small task. And that’s just the band, though — there’s also all the practice done beforehand, social media, marketing, merchandise, sound and light production, booking the shows… just playing the gigs is maybe 50% of the work. So add all that to the mix. And — I’m currently the vice president of the board or directors for the Dodge County Humane Society as well. We’re working on a fundraising event that — well, if you’ve ever run a fundraising event you know — also takes a lot of time and planning (if you actually want to raise funds, anyway). So the demands on my time are great. And, of course — these aren’t all of them. When you have a lot going on, it’s easy to get overwhelmed a bit. The stress can build up. Even though everything I’m doing are things that I love to do with people I enjoy being with — it pays to once in a while step back and take a long hard look at everything. The photo today is from a different window than usual. It’s a vertical photo, not horizontal, too. Sometimes we need to maybe take a look at things from a different perspective. I’m in the midst of planning to take three weeks off. I’ve done it before. By myself. I’m also super grateful my wife understands the importance of this for me. I don’t think every spouse would. But in the past, these three week vacations have proven to be the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. The first two I wrote books during that time. The last one didn’t go exactly as I had planned, but when you let go and let life guide you, that’s how it’ll work out sometimes. It’s easy to get caught up in our heads — gotta be here, gotta do this, gotta get that done… I have at lest ten pages of to-do lists for myself. But #1 on those lists always needs to be “stay in conscious contact with God”. Because following your soul’s direction isn’t easy if you aren’t in touch with it on a regular basis. You can’t put loving energy into your moments without approaching life from that space. That also takes time and effort. And, to me — being centered and living from the place within us that know only love? That’s priority #1.
