NOTE TO SELF
Wednesday Dec. 11, 2013
Do you ever have something happen – where, if things happened to someone else, you would write them a memo offering advice/perspective/guidance?
Sometimes, we need to look in our mirror and do that for ourselves – otherwise some things in the our day to day pace will drive us a tad crazy, befuddle our approach to a marking budget, cause Twilight Zone music to play in our ears and . . . .
Should I invest any more time thinking about this – dwelling on it, or just – as Andy reminded me yesterday – wear a tie.
How can something so apparently complex be made clear, its tangle unwoven, mystery solved, solution revealed?
Disambiguation challenge – to make the foggy clear, choose best direction, wisest choice.
Change of direction, change of thinking, change of objectives and goals? Change doesn’t really happen very easily, if at all, does it?
I was pondering my Plan A yesterday – wondering about the need for a Plan B in the event that Plan A doesn’t work out. Plan A isn’t a change in me, who I am or how I think – just a shifting of some ways my skills are applied, to different tasks, new challenges.
Why wouldn’t it work out?
Because going forward depends on decisions by people I’ve not met – using criteria I don’t know – assessing me vis-à-vis competitors I don’t know.
I was described as a wild card. At first it was meaningless – just a label, someone else’s, not mine but I got thinking, what does that mean?
Twist of fate?
Unusual opportunity?
Fluke?
As I was typing this line – my phone rang – a pocket dial (unintended wrong number), from the person’s cell phone, the one who used that term wild card yesterday.
Perhaps something different, like distinctively exceptional, perfect fit, ideally suited, collision of time, opportunity and motivation?
Somehow, as much as I think those things are true of me – and my appropriateness for the challenge in question, is that what he meant by wild card?
Does wild card mean perfect, imperfect, or just wild? Of course it could mean a thousand different things – and a term used by one person doesn’t necessarily fit, but I suspect the term has been used about me in discussion with someone else I’ll be meeting soon in pursuit of the same opportunity.
Nonconformity does not describe me any more than disagreeable does – yet I am often thought of as one or the other. Sometimes both.
Intense, emotional, complex and dedicated to what is important. And what is that? My goals, my client’s goals, alignment in thinking at some point (sometimes interrupted by strong disagreements), principles. Lessons learned, piled up and put together somehow – like a life, messy, complicated, effective.
I don’t have clear vision or clairvoyance, but getting clearer daily . . .
I’ve had two events recently – they are unrelated but they connect in my head somehow, that they might be familiar.
One was a speaking gig – something I put a lot of work into, developing my pitch, following up etc. One morning, without anyone contacting me, I went to their website to check my login – and there, in bright blue text, it said DECLINED. Just as disappointment was rolling through my veins, an email came in from someone asking if I could speak to their group. Within 30 minutes I had a booking. No waiting, no paper pushing, simple, done.
The other day I got an email that included …the project is a go… and sorry for the 3 year delay.
In both cases, not out of the blue or culmination of relationships and previous good work – so maybe, have them coming to fruition as they did is a wild card event. Maybe. More likely I think, product of good work previously done, staying in the game – ready, willing, able, interested. Nothing wild about that, but I must say I’m wild about it!
Mark Kolke
200,632
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -3C / 27F, partly overcast, nice breeze, warming up – streets will soon be slush-city to the added joy of autobody shops (1,900 collisions the other day), Gusta romping for joy and nibbly snowbank findings, I just love that fresh air and the challenge of keeping with pooch
Comments Received:
Strung along? Or strum along? I liked the Carole King lyric references – you got a friend!, EC, Chicago, IL
