Balance in My Life

Wow, has it really been over 3 weeks since my last post?? Here's a brief recap:

First, I want to say a big thanks for my parents who were up here for the past two weeks. While things have been very exciting, they've also been very stressful with Debbie working nearly full time, and me trying to get my website up, demo ready etc. I really could not have launched the website and be ready for the next phase in the business without my parents coming up and helping out, watching Elliana, preparing marketing mailings for me, etc.

Secondly, I have been reminded of Dan Miller's words about mortgaging areas of success in your life for the sake of the business, and I've definitely been borrowing heavily on areas such as exercise, time with Debbie and Elliana, etc lately and it's time to throttle down the business efforts and get a better balance in other areas in my life.

I ran a half marathon with Debbie a week ago, and I think it pretty much served as a metaphor (ok, maybe prime example) of borrowing from areas of success. Debbie's been training the past 14 weeks for this 13.1 mile run, and while I didn't feel I needed to train as much as she did since I've run 13 mile distances many times in prior marathon trainings, obviously you do need to run a decent amount. Well, in the past 60 days leading up to the race, I think I ran right around 20 miles total. I ran a few 5 mile runs here and there, a 10 mile run 6 weeks earlier, and then a few 3 mile runs after that. To put it another way, I should have averaged at least 20 miles each week for the past 8 weeks, i.e. 160 miles run, and I ended up running almost nothing.

This wasn't by choice mind you, I had planned to run more, especially the 4 weeks leading to the race, but between a few colds, being crazy busy, etc, one day I just realized the race was 4 days away. Whoops. So I ended up running it, and amazingly, I survived. Between caffeine and ibuprofen, I kept up with Debbie, and came through as her encouragement to finish the longest race she's ever done. I paid the price in pain the next few days, but I survived.

So back to the whole metaphor deal, that's pretty much how other areas in my life have gone as well. I've just managed to eek out victory on the brink of seeming massive failure, and while I've been bruised and banged up, I've survived. While it might make for a good story for someone reading about such an adventure, it most definitely is not the smartest way to roll, and is a bit like playing Russian roulette.

So, starting this weekend, even though I have a ton of things to do on the businesses as I finally kick off selling in earnest, family needs to come first. The business is either going to blossom or wilt with the amount of time I'm able to allocate towards it, (and obviously with God's guidance and direction in our lives), but the break neck speed of the past 6 months needs to slow down considerably.

Today I must say has been considerably less stressful than many previous days despite the fact that my parents left, Elliana was fussy, and I had tons of ideas swirling in my head about the business. Debbie, Elliana, and I spent a lot of good quality time together, and things just seemed to work out. In the past, a day like today could have lead to lots of stress and frustration as the worries and problems piled up, but I think we're off on the right foot. We'll see how the week unfolds...