Space; The Final Frontier

Where you sit and work defines how you think and feel!

Im a big fan of creating the perfect work space.

As perfect as budget, space and time will allow, anyway.

In a previous life I spent 100's possibly 1000's of hours

researching, working with vendors and contractors,

then designing the perfect office, cube and lab space.

I mean you spend anywhere between 8 and 12 hours per day there.

The space has to flow, provided minimum distractions.

It should be a place where you feel comfortable, creative where you feel stimulated.

Where you feel like you want to be there.

Which begs the question.

With all this knowledge and experience,

Why the hell was I still sitting at our dining room table trying to

build my performance coaching practice?

It was sucking the absolute life out of me.

It was neither creative or stimulating, and sure wasnt functional.

The day kind of went like this

Breakfast clear the table, set up office,

clear the table lunch, reset up office,

clear the table dinner...Rinse and repeat.

My environment was dragging me doing creatively and worst of all emotionally

It was time to get real.

Here is how that initial conversation went in my head.

"But where was I going to go.

Hana (my wife) has the only spare room for her home office.

The kids occupy just about every other space.

I have no desk , I have no chair.

I need a white board, I need a desk lamp......

Wo silver ,,,hold on a minute"

Yip I was doing it again,,making excuses why not.

rather than looking for reasons how too.

Some coach I was turning out to be.

First stop,,,IKEA online.

Nope not paying that for something that I will throw out next year

Then pottery barn and restorations hardware.

Holy cows batman...Nice stuff but not paying that..

Okay I know,,,lets check Castanet,,its the local online news site

that has a great classifieds section..Seems people here in the

Okanagan dont use Kijji or the likes.

After a wee while of searching I cam across this bad boy.

A few days and bunch of texts later I was headed out to

meet my step sister in law in her truck to the boonies of

East Kelowna to meet Dean.

Its part of the Merit Line by a company out of Montreal called Art Woodwork ltd.

The thing has a typewriter tray inside the big cabinet, a small sliding writing table on the left and a secret locking compartment...Its cool. But its tired and pretty knackered looking.

Not the sort of thing conducive to creating the right environment. There was nothing for it but to strip this back to its original oak and start again. I found out that this was way easier said than done or how its described on the bottle..

Stripper,,more like glue maker.

It took me and my father in law, 3 sanders, 3 scrapers a bunch of razor blades and more sanding sheets than I care to count to get it back to the natural wood. And a fine piece of furniture it was for the most part.

You can see that typewriter drawer and writing desk now

Now there are many of you who would probably leave it there but I had a particular finish in mind. That took another 2 days of staining and a half day of waxing and buffing.

Now it was time to get the finished piece up the stairs to the nook I had carved out. But this thing is solid and HEAVY. And with just me and Hana around it was a wee bit of a struggle but we made it.

This morning was spent getting all the tech set up and creating that

stimulating, creative space where I wanted to work.

And this is it.

What better way to test it out than to get creative and write something.

Its more than that though.

We all have a tendency to judge ourselves in the way we look on the outside

When we take time to strip back the layers there is something truly beautiful underneath.

Then with just a little TLC we can bring it back to life better than it was before.

No doubt this takes time and a whole lot of effort. Along the way you will be faced with a few obstacles.

But when you have set out on the task with a clear vision in mind as to what you want there is nothing that can get in your way or stop you succeeding.

If we want to be successful in life we have to take steps to create positive nurturing environments in everything and everywhere because if we don't will power will fail, enthusiasm will falter and drive will disappear and we will fail

Stop failing and start succeeding and create the environment you want. NOW!