Attitude of Gratitude on this Thanksgiving Day

As I prepare to head to my brother’s home in Brooklyn, NY to share this Thanksgiving Holiday with my family, I want to take this time to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Although I don’t have time to thank everyone for the outstanding life I’ve lived to this point (I’ll be 48 in three weeks) I want to start creating a list of those for whom I am extremely grateful (this is list will be far from comprehensive but its a start and something I will add to as I think of them, so I guess this will be under a new category. 

Here goes:
Mom & Dad (M&M as they were known to all who loved ‘em as a nickname for Martha & Mel Miss You Guys every day, more than you’ll ever know!)
Sisters Jane & Marlene (listed here in alphabetical order so as not to show any preference due to previous and experience with their sibling rivalry which still exists to this day to some extent)
Brother Harry (whom I looked up to as my older brother as kid and still do)
Wife Anne (who has brought joy, laughter, practicality, love, stability, and knowledge among many other things into my life the last 8 eight years)
Danny Schreiber, Phil Pron (childhood friends whom I’ve been able to reconnect with thanks to my 25th High School reunion in 2002)…
first girlfriend (Sue Caprio)
first wife Sharon (who taught me many things, most of all how to grow up and lose the focus on myself when she decided she had enough and wanted out of our marriage 10 years ago this fall, there’s anniversary to celebrate, I guess?)

I’ll add to this list tonight after I return home from brother Harry’s filled with Turkey, filling and other just desserts.

Have a GREAT THANKSGIVING and take moment to reflect and appreciate on all those who have made you who you are!

Best wishes for a happy, healthy, fun and prosperous Holiday Season!

Figuring Out How to Fulfill a Dream is Exciting

When I was starting my business a few years ago I had this dream of wanting to use the inspirational lyrics of Bruce Springsteen’s songs. My original idea was to use his songs, lyrics and life story as an actual success workshop. That dream is on the back burner but I took one step up this week to make it a reality.

One of my present workshops and products helps business professionals end procrastination. Having just recently attended my 53rd and 54th Springsteen concerts over the last few weeks I realized that a couple of lines from his song Badlands, fits perfectly with my end procrastination strategy.

I used those few lines in my handout and held a contest for a prize to anyone in the workshop who could identify the singer/songwriter who coined those lyrics.  One workshop participant yelled out his name before I even finished reading the four lines of lyrics. I was surprised, impressed and extremely happy that someone in that program was a fan.

Because procrastination is all about fear preventing people from doing what needs to be done, I thought these lyrics from Springsteen’s song Badlands were quite appropriate for my End Procrastination NOW! workshop:

“Talk about a dream,
Try to make it Real,
Wake up in the Night
With a Fear so Real,
You spend your life waiting
For a Moment that just don’t come,
Well, don’t waste your time waiting…”

Bruce Springsteen
Badlands, 1978

Busy Week - Too Much to Do, Not Enough Time in my Day - Sound Familiar?

After a week without a website this past week has been one of catching up.  A usually slow period for me is anything but that this year, which is a good thing for business development and prospects for 2008.

Where should my focus go this week?  Proposals, Projects, Presentations, Writing, Personal, Family? All of the above are necessary. My guitar practice and personal reading time is struggling to find room in the schedule.  I’m going to be applying my new concept of the “3% Percent Solution” this week to prioritize so that I can focus on the things that are most important over the next 40 days ’til January 1st.

 

A Trying Week Comes to An End - Time to ReGroup & Get Off to a Good Start on Monday, November 12th

You never know how important your website is until you don’t have one.

You never know how much not having e-mail contact with the world and especially your entire client base can make you feel so isolated until you don’t have it.

You never know how important person in your life and business is to you, until they leave you unexpectedly.

You never know how important old friends are until you re-connect with them.

Those are just some of my thoughts as I get ready to end this weekend and head into what is going to be a very busy week of client meetings, prospect meetings and peak performance presentations and trainings.

I will need all to apply all my peak performance strategies on myself starting first thing Monday morning, November 12 that I can muster as the past 10 days have been challenging for me.

My website went down in a host server transition on Friday, November 2nd and after some fits and restarts did not come back online ’til late Friday night, November 9th.  I felt totally out of touch last week and will be working to get caught up on projects for the next two weeks. Unfortunatley for one of my end of year initiatives the windown of opportunity may have been lost. We’ll have to see.

The big blow for me came on Friday night. A mentor of mine whom I was just getting to know and love through some intimate business coaching left me. I had a coaching session scheduled with my peak performance coach for Friday night, November 9th at 5pm.  When I arrived at his home in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, a 90-minute drive from my home, his wife of 16 years greeted me at the door. In a very somber voice she told me that he passed away suddenly from a heart attack two weeks ago, just one week after our last coaching session.

Needless to say I’ve been reeling in grief and disbelief for the past 48 hours trying to figure out where I go from here.  I certainly have enough tools to carry on.

In just the short time that Jena Marcovicci and I became coach and mentor I believe I finally began to move towards fulfilling my potential.  We met officially the final weekend in July at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York when my wife and I attended his Dance of Tennis workshop.

During that weekend we learned to turn our competitive tennis nature into one of partnership with the person on the other side of the net so that we could play an enjoyable game. We let go of the need to hit perfect shots and to win and learned to just be able to hit the ball consistently where we want it to go, even if most of those shots during our workshop were right back to our partner to keep the rally going.

We used relaxation, breathing, guided imagery, yoga and tai chi to prepare ourselves each day and we played tennis to music ranging from Bach & Beethoven to Little Richard to African bongos. It was the most joyous weekend I’ve ever experienced. It brought my wife and I closer together.

During the weekend I became enamored with Jena’s soft way of life and an ability to create even deeper focus and concentration through breathing than I was able to reach by myself. I knew if I wanted to get better at teaching these peak performance strategies I need to learn more under the tuteledge of a master and I believed Jena could help me do that.

It took two months after that tennis weekend for us to coordinate schedules so that we could connect for a 1:1 coaching session at his retreat center in the Berkshire Mountains on the Massachusetts/New York border.

We only had two sessions, one in late September and one in the middle of October but they will be with me forever.  I will use what Jena Marcovicci taught me to help other’s in business achieve the greater focus, relaxation and peace of mind that Jena brought to me and my business and other weekend and professional athletes.

I feel cheated that Jena, my coach and mentor is gone, as I wasn’t ready to stop learning from him. I feel cheated because one two-day “Dance of Tennis” weekend wasn’t enough for me and I was looking forward to attending again next summer. But, Jena and a higher power had other plans.

In speaking with his wife Skye that night at the doorstep of their retreat center I felt a deeper connection to Jena and his work than I had up to this point. Jena had deep convictions about life, death, this world and how he wanted it to be and how he wanted to leave it. He left this world on his terms and all of us should have the right to do the same and I respect him for that more than ever.

You see, as my wife watches the Wizard of Oz downstairs on TV, the show where four lost souls go searching for a lost piece of their personality, I went to Jena Marcovicci to find a lost piece of my personality, my congruency and integrity.

In just two sessions he opened my eyes and allowed me to recapture that integrity and congruency that I let slip away in recent years. For that I will be forever grateful and to honor Jena, myself and my clients I will continue the daily morning practice of meditation, yoga and the tai chi that Jena encouraged me to incorporate into my routine.

In just three short weeks I can feel a difference in how I approach my life and I have every intention of maintaining the practice so that I can continue to grow and serve Jena’s memory and the best interests of those that come to me for my help.