I'm back....things have been crazy! We have more help now so I am carving out more time for writing....whether you like it or not!
We took the company for a week-long retreat to Belize a couple weeks ago, where we held all of our strategic planning meetings. Needless to say, it was pretty phenomenal! Beautiful sand, clear water, turtles, sharks, rays, fish, coral and plenty of stories. It may have been one of the best things we have done yet! Everyone had a great time and the fact is, we also got a lot of planning done. Company culture is very important to me, whether it's our company, a client's or people that make the things I buy. I think the biggest plus about Spych is the fact I can honestly say I love everything about my job, day after day. Are there times when I may not be particularly thrilled about crunching numbers, inputting expenses or balancing out the finances? Absolutely, but those are the exceptions and I'm okay with that.
What is it that you could do every day for the rest of your life, and be happy? What is something that could keep you motivated to do your best and keep pushing forward? For me, its conversation. I thrive on great conversation and speaking with people who make me think. Really think. I guess I kind of got lucky enough to figure it out when I was a little kid, but for some reason I used to always think about when people talked about having "the best day of their life". I'd hear it in music, see it on TV and hear people talk about it in conversations. I eventually ended up on the conclusion that every day had the potential to be the best day of your life. So, I pretty much kept that in mind from then on. I know, i was a strange kiddo, but at least I was an optimistic one!
When you put it into perspective, it's true. How often do we think about it though? We wake up in the morning, scurry along to get ready for work, school, or whatever else our day brings, and we don't think about the potential of the day until something outstandingly positive or negative happens. I'm a person that believes in self-fulfilling prophecies. I know we can control our attitude, and to me, that can shape the majority of situations and conversations that occur throughout our day, or at least how we react to them. What if you wake up and consciously think about the potential for the day to really be the best day of your life? Some days it will end up being average, some below average, but do you think it could affect the progression of the "best" days of your life? I venture to say yes.
I hope tomorrow is the best day of your life...and the next day is even better!
BTW - if you're wondering, I had a pretty dang good day today. Was it the best? Maybe not, but at least it had the chance ;)
What is balance? Depending on its context, balance can take on a couple interesting faces:
a weighing scale
the presentation of multiple viewpoints (See Also Neutrality).
a desirable point between two or more opposite forces.
a device to measure the mass of an object.
When you look at balance as a measure in life, it is easy to get swept away in a stream of thoughts. Is balance life’s measuring scale? Is it the midpoint between “success” and “failure?” And the most mysterious, how do I achieve this magical neutrality?
I often struggle with this sense of balance and generally come to the same conclusion. My scale tends to tip heavily to the business side with significantly smaller portions of my time dedicated to “personal” time. Whether wrong or right, this just tends to be how I net out. Several factors contribute to my choice of allocating my time this way…yes we choose our balance and the way we allocate our time, after all, everyone has the same 24 hours in a day.
#1 – Drive of an Entrepreneur – It is very hard for me to “turn it off” – Knowing what my lifelong goals consist of, I constantly see opportunities in from of me and choose to capitalize on as many of them as possible as they are presented. This leads to times when I am forced to segment a portion of my “personal” free time to the mongrel of entrepreneurship! I’m ok with that!.....at least for now
#2 – Pay now or Pay Later – relates to #1 and perhaps where my true “balance” issues enter – My justification for ridiculously working my ass off now is to reap its rewards sooner and “retire” early. By retire I do in fact mean taking a less active role in terms of travel and workload. I am one of those people who would go crazy sitting around all day or driving an RV across the country. That being said, I do sometimes dream of playing golf everyday ☺ My struggle is to know this limit. It is easy for me to see the downfall of not capitalizing on business opportunity at a young age, but I do have to remind myself of the pitfalls that result from not enjoying the personal side of life at a young age as well.
#3 – Nature of the Beast – As long as I can remember I have always been a “busy” person. In HS, I was involved heavily in music and sports, and in college I had work, school and playing music. Along with those things, I have always had close relationships with my friends and family. When I moved to PA for my career and to essentially help build a company, all of a sudden my focus that was once spread over many verticals became focused. I think this made it very easy to become extremely intense with work and focusing my time and effort into those aspects of my life.
#4 – Long-term Provisions – My life goals have always included being able to provide for my family in a comfortable fashion. Though financial stability leads to a conversation of its own, my thoughts tend to fall to the side of - not having to wonder where the net bill is coming from, takes a lot of stress out of a relationship! I do realize money does not solve all problems and creates many of its own, it is important for me to know I can be a provider and offer a comfortable lifestyle to my future wife and children.
All in all, I guess I realize that my struggle to find life’s balance is not much different than anyone else. In fact, in many ways, I feel finding that “balance” is the “key to life”.
Life’s dichotomous journey takes us down paths both trodden and those unpaved, but feel content it always leaves an option to traverse down another direction or seek out a new adventure. There is no answer or magical solution, just opportunities for you to personally dismantle its web of discovery and find your own way.
- Ben
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