Dad Joke #1: Why wouldn’t the shrimp share his snack? Because he was shellfish…
I’m at Istanbul Airport, waiting to board my transfer to Athens. This afternoon I will go hiking in the national park north of the city, and tomorrow I run Execution Day Training for the local Accelerators.
On the day I host this training, we will also launch our final Shoshin Walk on the Whale Trail.
Yep, I said final. I’ve shut down the business that I started during Covid, and this will be our last hurrah. Like many others who pursued side hustles or passion projects, once the lights came back on, it just didn’t make sense to put more thought and energy into “walks of gratitude”.
That’s not to say that I’m not going to go walking. Or practice gratitude, breathing and a mindfulness mindset. Or take like-minded people along. I’m only desisting with the idea of finding a way to do it commercially.
And, to link up with the dad joke at the start of this, it’s pretty simple. I’m selfish. I would rather spend time with family and friends mountain biking on the weekend than host a group hiking. And I would rather be training a room full of entrepreneurs because that’s where I can have maximum impact. The hiking initiative started me on a coaching journey that has had wonderful and unexpected consequences, and I am super grateful for the opportunities that have sprung from those. I now coach and train full-time, in addition to strategically steering our luxury travel business.
It looks like a great group. And I have a great team looking after them. They will all have a blast, but I won’t be there, and then we won’t do them anymore. And that’s ok, the initiative has served me and others quite well over the last few years.
You know what actually p*sses me off? I had a pretty cool logo designed. Created a rad website. Built a lot of products, most of which we never really launched. But right back at the start of this, a little voice told me that the commercial opportunity is negligible. And a bigger voice (my wife’s) cautioned me into trying to turn my hobby into a business. Saying goodbye to all that sunk cost and time and effort is hard. But the alternative is not charging full steam ahead with the NEW!IMPROVED!PG TOPS!... which is really back to my core.
So, I suppose I’m leaning toward being selfish. Doing the things that I’m good at and that give me joy, and outsource/delegate/automate everything else.
I will start my presentation tomorrow, and not for the first time, with the intro scrawl from Star Wars. Btw, May the 4th be with you! Hehe. Dad joke.
Why did I show Star Wars? Because, and I never knew this, George Lucas took a 250,000 USD fine from the directors guild of America for not starting his movie off with the credits like everyone else. Lucas paid the fine – to him, it was more important to honour his audience with a POW! Start. And it paid off for him. So the message I want to impart to the delegates is to put thought and prep into your meeting/presentation/gathering – and start strong! Honour your audience. Be bold!
If you want to learn more about how to start good meetings, how to do the things that you should be doing, and how to utilize the omniscient ChatGPT in the process, come join me for the seminar next week on “Time Management for the New Normal” – promise it will be worth it.
Thanks, Shoshin Walks. It’s been real.
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