Moments — I'm behind with my blogging

What the reasons are I’m not really sure —

Maybe the long winter has gotten to me and I’m just waiting to the first day of spring before I start up again.

Maybe the busy days have me too tired to blog at the end of the day.

Or maybe, the last three weeks has had me dealing with some sort of gremlin* and I’ve been afraid to put “pen to paper”. I will admit the growing evidence has me thinking this is the only plausible explanation.

• I showed up for my morning flight only to find out I’d booked an evening flight.

• The plane was delayed due to a faulty lavatory light.

• I have a cavity — I never get cavities.

• I forgot a work thing that I never forget.

• I went downtown for a meeting only to discover I’d forgotten my power cord and the battery was at 7%. And of course there was not a Mac person to be found.

• Had to buy 500 sheets of legal sized paper because there are still some people who insist on using it.

• I lost my favourite watch — truth be told I left it in a gym locker.

• I’ve discovered there’s a scratch on my phone.

• Sure enough, as it started to rain, I realized I had forgotten my umbrella at the last place I visited.

Although I will admit if I look in the mirror… maybe… just maybe the reason I’m behind with my blogging is I’ve been too busy whining and not concentrating on what I’m doing.

In fairness, it has been a long winter.

iamgpe

* grem·lin [ˈɡremlən] NOUN — an imaginary mischievous sprite regarded as responsible for an unexplained problem or fault, especially a mechanical or electronic one.

The chronicling of a journey...

With reference to my blogging, it was recently pointed out that I was doing a pretty good job of chronicling my life — and even more recently, I received an email from someone who mentioned that they could identify with a blog I had written, and appreciated my "mentorship".

Considering my initial reasons for blogging were to articulate my domain expertise with regard to solving sales and marketing problems, become a better writer, and better understand social media strategy, the chronicling and mentorship accolades were an unexpected bonus. From the beginning I have blogged in five subject matter areas:

• Change and Adaption
• Creative Problem Solving
• Leadership
• Execution
• The Journeyman and the Human Condition

I suppose the frequency of what I write about depends on what business I have going on at the moment, what comes out of my conversations with people, and whatever life happens to offer up at any given time. I do remember making a conscious decision to embrace topics on the human condition more frequently because like life, sales and marketing problems are multi-dimensional (and frankly, more often than not, it's all one in the same anyway). There's something important that comes with chronicling your thoughts and ideas (be it in a blog, a video, or a pod cast) because its a tangible proxy of who you are and what you can do; more importantly, there is a permanency that allows others to engage (be it now or later). For me, blogging serves me well because I simply can't stand the sound of my voice (let alone look at myself on video)... so I say find your sweet spot and develop it.

When I asked the person who comment on my blog what she wanted, she went on to offer up what most 30-something corporate professionals seem to want —

What do I want? Three year plan- 

1. Grow into a people management position in the company and work towards a global role. Interested in the Asian markets.

2. Teach part time.

3. Keep working on my entrepreneurial endeavours

Life goal... grow and explore new things, keep teaching. More importantly, keep moving forward.

When she asked what I wanted, this is what I said (which I suspect is what most 50-something people might say in one form or an other) —

Me?  it’s all about legacy now... a legacy family property for my daughter to escape the city, a legacy in who I help with their "travels", and health to serve the two...

In the end I think he is right about me chronicling my professional endeavours as I weave myself through the trials and tribulations of helping companies with their sales and marketing problems, helping startups, understanding new technologies like Blockchain, and uncovering opportunities where I can help — all the while, embracing being that journeyman and experiencing the human condition.

One way or another, it's all about what we are doing as we strive to meet our goals ... although I can't help but encourage you to think about chronically your journey because we would all be better for hearing about it.

iamgpe

#!@$... a spelling mistake! Thank you for letting me know.

The following is the original and the rewrite can be found by clicking here.

I have been blogging in earnest for about two years now and my reasons are simple; articulate my expertise as someone who can solve Sales & Marketing problems and become a better writer. 

I will be the first to say I will never be a great writer, but I do believe I can be a good writer and maybe even a very good story teller; I've been encouraged to this end because when I look back at my body of work I can see improvement, and I've also been told by people I respect that I am getting better. 

With all of this said, the bane of my writing experience so far is proof reading, and by extension, spelling mistakes!

This point was illustrated in glorious fashion with a recent "re-post" on beBee entitled Never lose your sense of wonder, or in other words...  where a misspelled word slipped through... and worse still, the error was in the "title".  It seems that the word "lose", which means "to no longer have", changes to something completely different when you add an extra "o" and the word becomes "loose".

This is exactly what happened when I published the original post, and in effect asked people to Never "fasten tightly" your sense of wonder; I suppose the title would work if the subject matter was about never committing to a sense of wonder, but it wasn't... and worse still, I was oblivious to all of it. 

That was until two people let me know about my error. It was then I simply said to myself, "Ugh... I better fix this".

I have come a long way from internalizing this sort of thing, and using it to identify ability and self worth; I now just see it as a problem that needs to be rectified. I will admit it was really irritating and a glaring reminder to improve my proof reading ability, but three minutes later, with the rogue "o" removed and the proper meaning restored, I was happily back to my oblivious self.

With the mistake behind me, I could not help but turn to the fact that someone, more than one someone in fact, took the time to let me know that I had made a mistake. They did it with respect, and even a little concern that I may be upset that they had pointed it out; I was not, more to the contrary, I really appreciated it.

Is there a point here regarding getting better at proofing when you write or the value in learning from your mistakes... there sure is. However, what this experience has offered me was the opportunity to pause and appreciate those people who not only read what I write but take the time to engage, and help me become better at what I am doing. Maybe it is an aspect of beBee (the social media site I am on), or that people generally want to help, or possibly the "luck of the universe" was on my side that day... whatever the reason, I want to simply say, "Thank you".

And one last thing, until the end of my days, I will never confuse "Lose" and "Loose" again.

iamgpe

PS: Please let there be no spelling mistakes.