I received an electronic note yesterday from a fellow I worked with more than a decade ago. Ours is a professional relationship rather than a personal one, so what he wrote really hit home. He recalled something I taught in a seminar perhaps fifteen years ago. It hit home with him and he embraced it. Because of that, I thought I would take the time to share it.
Twenty years ago I was living in Miami, surrounded by the trappings of material success: a bayfront home twice the size of what we needed, oversized pool, dock, boat, German cars–you get the picture. Since I had left home at 17 and worked my way through school, I had earned off it it. I had so much … and yet I felt so hollow it felt like what I really had was nothing at all.
I was brooding and unhappy and decided to take a quick seaplane flight 50 miles into the Atlantic. We skidded to a halt in the bonefish rich shallow waters of Bimini Bay, then trundled up and out of the sea at the foot of narrow, sandy “Kings Highway” in Alice Town near North Bimini’s southern tip (pop. 1300). I rented a room at the Compleat Angler, an old haunt of Hemingway’s. The tiny downstairs bar was the site of Gary Hart’s ill-fated, bleary-eyed and goofy grinned 1987 lap snuggle with girl toy Donna Rice, which effectively imploded his run for the presidency.
Hemingway’s old room was upstairs and Ossie Brown, the manager (later killed in a robbery) put me there. I unpacked my travel bag, freeing my cigars and cognac.
When traveling alone I do not talk much. Instead I think. Rocking on the porch, studying the emerald shimmer of the bay while sipping a cognac and sending smoke signals from a Macanudo seemed a civilized way to figure out why I was so sad.
The answer did not come from the porch; it came the next day 400 yards away, just below where my seaplane disgorged me. There I sat, thinking on a seawall, Rubik’s cubing confusion through what turned out to be an entire tidal change.
I arrived there that morning confused. I left hours later a changed man.
At that time in life everything seemed a war. I was an angry young man, and perhaps that’s part of what propelled me to outsell my competitors. I had finished number one in the nation selling for Xerox and with the honor came a portrait photo in the company’s national magazine.
My pose? I was frowning. A friend of mine saw it, tore it out, wrote, “Relax, Theo, you won!” in the border, and mailed it to me.
“So what?” I thought. “Big deal. That’s ancient history.”
The epicenter of my discontent, I decided that bright, sunny Bimini seawall day, was that I had no idea who I truly wanted to be. Not as a businessman, but as a real man. Somehow I had gotten lost; buried under the wreckage and rubble of corporate tornadoes.
Sometimes in life so many come at us from so many directions, paintballing us with non-solicited advice, that unless we know and defend the core elements of our personal brand–who we truly aspire to be in life–making decisions and taking action turns life into a head-spinning series of high velocity amusement rides instead of a straight line to happiness.
That day on the seawall I decided to define who I aspired to be. Not who I was (or thought I was), but who I really wanted to be. Life then, could finally become a defined pursuit.
I transferred my thoughts onto a scrawls on folded notepaper, emptying my head and heart. The list grew to 19 or 20 or so, but many thoughts were related derivatives of other points so I kept editing the list. I wanted precise clarity. Post-edit, I stared at my list and counted them: a dozen.
I stack-ranked those twelve guidelines, in order of importance from one through twelve. It sounds easier than it was. It took me a full hour (at least) to juggle them to where I was sure they were in the right order.
I was exhilarated to finish. A burden was lifted. Every word was precise in its contribution and description, and the list was stackranked in perfect order. Re-reading it, I knew I finally had a roadmap for happier living.
Yes, it may have been long overdue; but while I may have been a reluctant cartographer at least I was an accurate one. That list is typed up, laminated, and stuck to a magnet on my file cabinet, one foot from where I write. A second copy is eye-high on my refrigerator door. This list has remained relevant and in plain view for twenty years. Having stood the test of time, I often teach the importance of the Daily Dozen exercise to my clients.
Yesterday my friend, Kevin Carrington, wrote, “I remember you came to a sales training class I attended and discussed the 10 or 12 rules you live by to create balance. Your theme was ‘people in balance never hit the ground.'”
It’s an honor to be remembered, especially when the topic is something so important to a good and happy life. All of us should have a Daily Dozen; when head and heart are aligned, life gets a whole lot easier. I am living proof.
And I’ve got a sneaky suspicion Kevin is, too.