Time Is Running Out

For the last 3 months, I have been waking up at 3:30 AM. No alarm, regardless of how early or late I got the rack the night before. Eyes wide open, in the dark, always the same thought. "What the hell"?! So I get up, and start my routine: Head to the kitchen, drink some water, make a cup of black coffee, grab the laptop, phone and head out to the patio in the dark, and read. Usually, by 5:00 AM, I am on my 3rd cup of coffee…and my stomach is in knots with anxiety. I have convinced myself it is because of the endless stream of emails that I know will be waiting in my inbox and that FEELING is me just getting ready to tackle them. But before I can turn my attention to my job, I need to work out, because if I don't get THAT work in, I won't have a good day at the desk…and if I don't get out the door before the sun, I will be way behind. Yes…you know that feeling too. It's awful. And it's all bullshit.

 Training Status: Maintaining

I have no reason to be up today, hours before the sun. I am pretty sure I didn't get quality sleep, and I don't feel rejuvenated. I am irritated. I've been making excuses for the way I feel. I know this because I love what I do for a living, and I love working out - the job and the sweat is NOT causing my anxiety. I am anxious because I have taken my eye off of my FUTURE self, and have spent the last 18 months focused on my PRESENT self. I have been looking at my calendar by the day, not by the next 5, 10, or 20 years. It's a little hard for me to explain, but my daily routine has been simply to maintain…and when I maintain, I am not progressing. And what is annoying is, all I had to do was analyze the history of my Garmin Smartwatch. In bold letters, the cause of my anxiety was staring me in the face. Training Status: Maintaining.  Shit...

Some of you may say, what the hell is his problem? What's wrong with maintaining, keeping your place, not losing ground? These are desirable outcomes! And I agree...sure…I get it. Maintaining is hard. Don't believe me? Get into a river and try to swim against a current…try to maintain your pace and stay in one spot. It's exhausting. But...so what? You aren't going anywhere. Who wants to be in a perpetual state of tired just maintaining your present self? If you are going to be tired…then be tired because you are working to reach your FUTURE self. Something that is beyond where and what you are today. My anxiety is telling me to act because I am running. out. of time. We all are.

 Fear

The fact is, I have paralyzing fear. This fear holding me back: from trying something new, taking a risk, or taking a step toward BIGGER goals. I suppose I am afraid of failure. I motivate myself to do hard things, probably to push myself into not letting the fear of failure stand in my way, and to remind myself that I cannot be successful if I don't risk failure. So I work hard to NOT FAIL. But somewhere along the way, I equated HARD with Progress, when what I really need is for HARD to equal ROI - Return on Investment. I need an ROI on my sweat, pain & fear. I am realizing that NOT FAILING is not necessarily…being successful. What I am really afraid of is...succeeding.

 Success Means Change

If you try something and fail, so what? You feel a little pain, and you withdraw. You get back to your comfort zone and you recover. Success, on the other hand…is a whole new game. Things absolutely do change. I often read stories about people who somehow make it to the "big leagues". Almost all of them say they weren't ready for it…it just happened. Like one day they woke up and it was just…different, filled with pressures that they could never conceive of before, like how to handle their finances, new friends, responsibilities, and social status. NOBODY thinks about what happens after success. EVERYBODY thinks of what happens if they fail…because they KNOW what happens…things stay the same or sets them back to a place that they have ALREADY been before. And in the back of their mind, they know that they can survive and recover from that. 

But success? How do you envision that? You haven't experienced it yet, so your lizard brain makes up things that it KNOWS…it makes up monsters to keep you from taking the necessary risks to succeed. It wants you to be comfortable...and keep you down...where it is safe.

Making an Impact

I have narrowed down what the definition of success is for me. It centers around making a bigger impact on more people by doing something that allows me to share opinions and experiences more broadly, with a larger audience. This is a feeling I have from looking inward and understanding a little more about what motivates me. I want to make an impact. So...I've decided to do something that I have been thinking about for a long while. It seems like a little thing, now that I am writing it down...but it puckers my butt, so I know it MEANS something, at least to me.

I am launching a Podcast: #DOHARDTHINGS. It's a platform to spotlight real-world experiences with people and companies that are building their businesses and careers as sellers and consultants in the Cloud. I have dabbled with this concept in the past and have written a fair number of articles, but I have never fully committed to it. All of that changes today. I cannot afford to hold back simply because I feel vulnerable to being in the spotlight with more people. I don't have time for that. It's easy to be scared off by the feeling that I may be ill-equipped to handle the scrutiny, judgment, and everything else that comes with that broader exposure. I have no idea if it will live up to anyone's expectations - real or imagined. I am doing it anyway.

Sabotage is Overrated

I have pretty much convinced myself that I was already putting it all out there and giving it everything I had even though I knew deep down that I wasn’t. I have had success, so I could still get pats on the back if I just walked away from my plans before I went all in. I’ve been saying, “I am doing well right now, I don’t have time for more…it’s just not meant to be.” Maybe keeping that in my back pocket, so that it would ALLOW me to just keep doing the things I am good at, the things I already know. Keep me comfortable. Keep me down.

This thinking is real, and it is self-sabotage. It’s the reason you hear some people say, “it’s not hard to make money, it’s hard to keep it”. If you are only worried about holding onto what you already have, you will never be able to have more. We’ll always think our goals are too big.

The Importance of Permission

I have been going through this evolution in my thinking for a while…probably since 2015 when I first started writing articles on LinkedIn. I’ve been inching my way forward, ever so slowly. So slowly, in fact, that I have gone backward. The thing that has gotten me fired up again has been my involvement in a series of Point of View interviews (POV) that I have been hosting with @ChipPieper on my team. It's in an effort he has been driving to “spotlight” AWS partners through quick-hit video conversations designed to help AWS sellers, customers and anyone else learn a little bit more about the people – the names and the faces – behind the logos we work with. We want to share the stories that you never get to read in a briefing document or company description. It’s infinitely more interesting to hear the stories come directly from the people themselves.  

 Last week, while I prepared to interview Rich Uhl, CTO of 1Strategy, A TEKsystems Global Services company, I came across an article he wrote for his blog. It was titled, The Importance of Permission, and it blew me away. Rich was struggling with the exact OPPOSITE issue I have been struggling with. Before building 1Strategy, he had always permitted himself to succeed…he wasn’t afraid to work hard, be successful, and do whatever was necessary. He wasn’t afraid of the potential for growth that it would bring. He knew from experience that if he decided to do something he felt was right, that he would give his everything to do it right, whatever the sacrifice. But that didn’t mean he had no fear. While he had always permitted himself to succeed, he hadn’t yet permitted himself to fail. Once he did that, it made all the difference.

 I encourage you to learn more about Rich Uhl and his journey building 1Strategy, and it's evolution with TEKsystems, as told by Mike Driscoll. The link to the POV we recorded is here.

 Do Hard Things: The Podcast

Yes…I am going to be a podcaster. Over the coming weeks, I will be building the format. We already have the logo approved. I cannot tell you how many hours I have spent setting up audio and visuals. I promise you that this will start bare-bones…I probably spent a total of $300 putting everything together. The hard part is done. Just saying it out loud.

I will need your help! I will be spending the bulk of my time finding people to talk to and discussing a WIDE variety of topics. I promise that these will not be features and functions discussions about products, announcements, etc... That's because I work with people. People are messy, funny, scared, motivating, inspiring, and gloriously flawed. And they #DOHARDTHINGS. I want them to talk about what motivates, inspires, and drives them to do amazing things.

I also commit to writing articles again, some will be long, most will be short. These will simply be my observations and opinions built up over my career. And I will likely spend a lot of time talking about the importance of fitness…because if you plan to do hard things, you are going to need some stamina.

Ok. I am ready for a long bike ride up Mt Lemmon and a few football games on tv.

Hit me up if you'd like to spend some time behind the mic!

 Stay tuned,

 m-