Day 10

Two data points do not a trend make, unless you need it to

It’s been a great week. I had my second Zoom call with one of my college friends and groomsmen. He was always the coolest guy in the room, a suave player who always gave me a dance partner in the club. We chatted about daughters, sons, and wives that we don’t deserve. I went through my story; sharing it by speaking and writing is really helping me come to grips with where I am, and giving me more motivation each day to move one.

He had some great insight for me, drawing from his own story. Here are some gems.

• You have to reach out to people. We’re good people, and typically we’ve surrounded ourselves with good people throughout our lives. These people want to help and are willing.

• Your background is wide-ranging, and that is good and a challenge. Most of us have a career that drills down in a particular industry with a specific field and expertise. My career has been with manufacturing firms but quite the gamut: Aerospace, Automotive, Textiles, Chemicals, Metals, Heavy Equipment, Building Materials, Machine Tools, etc. I’ve worked with mainly large international firms from those selling to a small number of customers to those with thousands of customers to those selling through distributors. I may be an easy candidate to put in the No pile because of this.

• Sales and consulting thrive on success. When you have a gap in your life, that success goes away. Restarting without success is hard.

• As you search, you need to find individuals to believe in you. This really resonates, as it has been the basis of my consulting business for over 20 years.

This is the second of what I know are many people in my life who care about me and are willing to give me hard-earned wisdom from their own scars. I’m gaining confidence with each meeting as I speak and collect my thoughts and listen and speak again.

For years I lived a lonely life, one of airports and hotels and calls back to my wife. I traveled 50-80% a year, sometimes in a single place for a week or three, most of the time a different city or even country each day or two. Loneliness was a by-product of this existence. My times back home became complicated as I adjusted and my family I’m sure did as well.

To be alone among family and people is damaging. I haven’t been at my best, haven’t thrived, haven’t excelled, haven’t impacted others. I can see changes.

We need to commit to staying in touch, even after this when you are settled into your next career.

After my Zoom call today, my friend sent me an email to continue some thoughts. “When you are settled into your next career.” It will happen, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow…

I am so appreciative of the subscribers to craig’s journey to impact. I have zero goals or expectations of the number of subscribers, the number of emails opened. Just to see a few people is enough. All content here is free to subscribers. If you want to become a Paid Subscriber, I am thankful. It is really just an opportunity for you to be involved a bit more with my journey.

If there is anything I’ve learned in these first ten days, it’s that there are so many people who have struggled, who have gone through their own periods of difficulty, of despair, of fear. Some of us are there now. Reach out if you are there, if you don’t know the what of today and the why of tomorrow. I’m finding so many people who love me, who care about me, who want me to thrive. It will be a soccer weekend, probably a pretty wet one. I’ll do my best not to be alone.