I wrote this in my journal last Saturday morning while sitting down at the local coffeehouse.
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I’m in a reflective mindset and now I get this. A guy stops by my table, tellling me to get my ass down to the racquetball club in 15 minutes because “all the big guns will be there.”
I could bail right now and join the gang at the club. I’m pleased to be invited. I’m a big-gun wannabe. But it would be entirely ego-driven since from the moment I woke up this morning, I’ve been trying to pay attention to… what? Something, I don’t know. It’s triggered by the feedback to my presentation at yesterday’s Inner Circle meeting on what my vision and plan is for Real Joe as a business. I’m just trying to be alert, to listen to whatever inspiration or ideas or wisdom might be on its way. I could be wrong, of course. There could be nothing new on its way. The message could simply be “stay the course… persist.” But after rereading a section of Coming to Life this week, I was reminded that I don’t have to “know.” I just have to ask, listen, and then do. Obey, even.
After leaving yesterday’s meeting, I stopped at a bookstore to see if they had a book recommended by a guy in my group — Jim Earley, an executive coach. They didn’t but while perusing the rack, I saw the book A Kick in the Seat of the Pants by Roger van Oechs, first published back in the 80s sometime. I flipped through the chapters and saw that the last one was on The Warrior attitude. Which is my sense of what I need more of these days. So I ordered it from my local library’s online service SELCO, which is my usual money-saving strategy these days– get it from the library first and the decide if it’s something I want to buy.
So now I’ll go for a short walk before I head to an arts festival in neighboring Cannon Falls with my wife, daughter, and her friend. I’d rather be riding my motorcycle today but I’ve got a lot of that coming up over the next month so this arts festival thing was my idea, much to my wife’s surprise. And all the big guns will still be at the club next week anyway.