Not just a phone call......

“You always get what you unconsciously believe and expect.”

– Joe Vitale

As I drove my bus on today's morning run, 2 or 3 different thoughts on which I might write about came to mind. That is until I received a phone call from a friend.Last Friday, I had what can only be described as one of the most taxing days I have ever had,at least from an emotional point of view.

The happenings of the day left me feeling distraught and overwhelmed with anxiety.

In a moment of sheer panic, I mentally leafed through my contact book trying to think of some one to call,some one to talk to,some one who would listen to me.

After wracking my brain for what seemed an eternity, I found a person to speak to call. Fortunately for me he was available. He listened as I poured out my woes to him, barely giving him a space to make comment.

In a word, I dumped on him and he listened. Actually, he did more than listen.

He heard me.

And maybe that was all I needed in that moment, someone to hear me.

That was last Friday.

A weekend has past since then and although the challenges I was facing have not diminished, the overwhelming anxiety associated with them has subsided.

I have begun the process of moving on, not that I have a clue as to what that may look like.

As I parked my bus and made mental plans as to what the rest of my morning might look like, my phone rang.

It was my friend checking in to see how I was doing.

He said he just called to see how I was doing.

To me, it wasn't just a phone call.

It was a reminder of just how important a phone call can be.

Shavua Tov!

It's February...............

“Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.”

~ Deepak Chopra

Yes,it's February.

February 2nd to be exact.

And yes ,it has been almost 2 weeks since I have written anything.

January may have been the single least productive month in terms of writing since I started this practice 5 and 1/2 years ago.

This is not a good thing for me.

While sitting at the airport on the way home from the Halloween Industry trade show, my brother commented to a customer of his,"yeah.....my brother writes almost every day....I just don't know how he has that much extra time!"

The answer is,I don't.

There is no EXTRA in time.

There are those same 60 minutes in each of the 24 hours in every one of the 7 days in each week.

Finding 1 hour each and every day to write would probably be something I could accomplish.

Skip a meal .

Sleep a little bit less.

Grab 15 minutes here and there.

Finding the hour that it may take for me to write is not the challenge.

The real challenge is re-creating the space that allows my thoughts and my writing to come together.

I am, as we all are, a creature of habits and comforts.

I write at my desk,on my desktop computer usually in the morning, before the happenings of the day has had time to completely overwhelm my thoughts.

When I do not write, it's not that it's not important to me.

Quite the contrary.

When I do not write,you can bet that I am experiencing abnormal levels of stress,starting early in my day and continuing until bedtime when I collapse from exhaustion,more mental than physical.

So the answer to my brother's comment of "how do I find the time to write?" is "how do I not?"

Writing is my life preserver.

Writing is my energizer.

Writing is my release.

Writing keeps me grounded.

Writing connects me to you.

Writing brings clarity to my world

Not writing isolates me.

Not writing adds stress to my life.

Not writing drains me.

Not writing adds to the tumult.

Not writing makes me anxious.

January is now over.

My desk calendar reminds me that February is now here.

There is a clean new page greeting me when I sit down daily.

With a little bit of luck and a bit more effort,I can hopefully find that time and space that has eluded me for the last few weeks.

Writing to you is important to my well being.

Shabbat Shalom!

Stumbling & Bumbling

"Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are."

~ Marianne Williamson

For the last few weeks, maybe months, I have permitted myself to be the victim of my own life.

It's not that anything tragic or earth shattering has taken place.

On the contrary, at best ,what I can say is that nothing has happened.

I have mostly been sleep walking through life.

I wake up.

I go about my daily routine.

I wait for others to do what they need to do, as if somehow,until they do I can't move on with my life.

Bulls#!t on that!

That's a bunch of nonsense that I have some how convinced myself is the reason for my inaction.

The by-product of this malaise is I have fallen into some bad old lazy habits.

I have gotten sloppy.

Sloppy in my appearance.

Sloppy in my food choices.

Sloppy in my work habits.

Sloppy in all areas of my life.

I have been stumbling and bumbling through my days instead of actively engaging in my life.

I am not sure what changed over night, however today I woke up and greeted the day as if that fog that I have been engulfed in has completely dissipated.

It's time to get back to work.

It's time to venture forward.

It's time to lead my life not be led by life.

What's done is done. I can't change that.

The opportunities missed during that time?

Not an issue...new day..... new opportunities.

Time to have at it!

Phew!

That feels better!

January Word of the Month

‘Forget about it’ is like if you agree with someone, you know, like Raquel Welch is one great piece of ass, ‘forget about it.’ But then, if you disagree, like a Lincoln is better than a Cadillac? ‘Forget about it!’ You know? But then, it’s also like if something’s the greatest thing in the world, like mingia those peppers, ‘forget about it.’ But it’s also like saying ‘Go to hell!’ too. Like, you know, like ‘Hey Paulie, you got a one inch pecker?’ and Paulie says ‘Forget about it!’ Sometimes it just means, ‘forget about it.’

-Johnny Depp

in the 1997 film Donnie Brasco

January word of the Month:

Fuggedaboudit

"Nonstandard. contraction of forget about it (used especially to emphasize improbability, and often used as an interjection): If you think you're getting more money, fuggedaboutit!"

HBO ran the entire Sopranos series last week.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the show's debut.

In my humble opinion,The Sopranos was the best television show I ever watched.

The character development was meticulous, the stories were captivating and the writers captured a snapshot of what life really looks like,albeit from a very specific North Jersey point of view.

I remember when the show was first airing.

I was doing a lot of business with some West Coast based firms.

They would ask" how much of this stuff is real life".

My answer was simple " fuggedaboudit!"

From Goodfellows to Donnie Brasco to The Sopramos, this phrase is the quintessential answer to many of life's greatest questions.

It can be used in response to many different queries as explained by Johnnie Depp in Donnie Brasco.

For me, it's even more than that.

It's an attitude.

When I get miffed about something I remind myself ......

Fuggedaboudit.

When something goes awry,once again I say....

Fuggedaboudit.

When someone offers up a gratitude for something I may have done I reply............

Fuggedaboudit

And when words alone fall short when I am trying to describe something, the only response I have is....

Fuggedaboudit.

I spent a good part of my adult life working in and around this environment.

It was a very special ,formative time for me. The only way for me to describe it is................

Fuggedaboudit!

Shabbat Shalom!

When life hands you lemons...........................

"We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves."

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

Or not!

I kind of hate that expression.

Talk about limiting beliefs!

There are many other uses for lemons than making lemonade.

Lemons are a beautiful, colorful fruit.

The aye extraordinarily pleasing in their fragrance.

You can use all parts of the lemon from the rid to the meat.

And the only god thing you can come up with is lemonade?

Geeesh!

I was having a conversation with a colleague the other day.

He was going on and on about his neighbor who was having his yard landscaped.

Not just a landscaper cutting his grass and trimming the bushes.

This guy had a crew of 8-0 workers at his house for almost 2 weeks, tearing out the old and replacing literally everything from the soil up.

Actually he even had underground sprinklers and drainage added under the top soil.

A fortune went into his new lawn.

My colleague was bemoaning all of this, stuck on how "wastefully" that money was being spent and how he could "barely" afford to pay someone to cut his grass.

I listened ,kind of halfheartedly.

I was more interested in seeing the work being done and trying to figure out which of these new elements I might add in my yard.

He had some great grasses going in.

I'm not a big fan of shrubs so they didn't mean much to me.

I also think I get plenty of rain here so an underground sprinkler system is not on my bucket list.

The point I am making is my friend was stuck on "I just have to make do with the little I have" and I was relishing the opportunity to make the most of what I have.

Same vista,different vision.

When life hands you lemons.....be thankful !

This Guy and That Guy

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come."

 ~ Joseph Campbell #quote #mindset

A few years ago, we launched a costume company called This Guy Costumes.

Our observations at the time was that men's costumes was an area of opportunity.

When it came to naming this new venture, I remember tossing around either This Guy or That Guy as the name.

This Guy won out.

Today this has much more meaning to me than it did 5 years ago.

That guy is about what other's are thinking.

"That guy over there..."

"That guy is the guy who....."

"Look at That guy......"

This guy is about what I believe about myself.

"This guy can do that....."

"This guy will take care of it................"

"This guy has what it takes........"

I lived most of my life seeing myself as that guy, the guy seen through other people's eyes.

Now, I could care less about being that guy.

The only thing that matters is my relationship with This Guy.

It breaks down to one simple question and one simple answer.

Question: Who's the man?

Answer: This Guy!

Shavua Tov!

Spinning Plates

"I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions."

-Stephen Covey

I actually began writing this on Thursday morning.

Then life happened!

One of the things that has become clearly evident to me is that I want to get back to prioritizing my day.

Start each day with a plan.

A plan that includes identifying my top 3 priorities for the day and sticking to them.

I try to do this every night before shutting down for the day,plan for tomorrow.

The challenge develops when I open my morning emails to find that someone sent me a note that includes " .....and I need this today!"

Or when I check in for my early morning run and find out that the County has cancelled their bus and I now have 6 extra stops.

Invariably there is something unexpected that pops up.

Ignoring them is not a great option.

Neither is allowing these new tasks overwhelm me to the point that I neglect what I want to accomplish today.

The best way I know to maintain control when this happens is to make sure I add these to my daily list.

Sometimes , attending to these new requests for my attention can be handled in the moment.

Forwarding a file,sending out a response to an email or filling out some form or paperwork.

Often times, because I start my day before 7 here on the East Coast, time zones become a factor.

An email from Spain (6 hours ahead of me) with a request that requires a response from a vendor in California (3 hours behind me) can literally hang around for over a day.

Forget when China gets involved!

You can see how these things can just drag on , unresolved for a long period of time.

They become a distraction. They hang over me like a stench in the air that just won't go away.

Handling the immediate request or challenge, and then letting go is a skill set that I must practice over and over again.

When I do this, when I remember to handle it,let go of it and move on, I can be much more productive and efficient.

And I can then get back to my original Big 3 Goals for the day.

Making sure that other people's needs do not overwhelm my own can be a challenge.

Particularly when these "needs" will ultimately impact my world!

Like the act on the old Ed Sullivan Show, there are just so many plates that I can keep spinning before their rotations start to falter.

The trick is to make sure that none of them hit the ground and knowing just when it's time to grab them before they do.

And never lose sight of what I need to accomplish today!

Shabbat Shalom!