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It was a good ten or twelve years ago, and I was late for a meeting.
I was rushing through Coconut Grove from my office to meet with my client on the other end of town. It was a typical, beautifully warm Miami day, and I was wearing a suit and tie. So besides being stressed from being late (I HATE being late), I was also a bit too warm thanks to my brisk pace and the clothes I had on.
Coconut Grove's downtown center has an open-air entertainment center called CocoWalk. And right there, in the center of CocoWalk, there used to be a Starbucks.
As I hurried past the Starbucks, I noticed a guy sitting outside at a table sipping his coffee. He was dressed in shorts, a t-shirt, and running shoes. His bike was leaning against the table, and he was pecking away at his laptop. He seemed about as calm and relaxed as I was stressed and harried.
As I rushed past him, I realized he had exactly what I wanted. He was dressed comfortably, he was enjoying his coffee, he was relaxed, and he was busy writing.
(Although, to be fair, I had no idea what he was doing on his laptop.)
Yes, he might have been writing the next great American novel. But he just as well might have been painstakingly filling out bankruptcy documents. Or he may have been mindlessly surfing the web. I didn't know what he was doing. All I did know was that in my fantasy, he was doing exactly what he wanted to be doing.
And he was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, also.
I was so taken by that scene that when I finally made it to my meeting and sat in the client's conference room, I sketched out what I had just witnessed. That little doodle became one of my guideposts as I worked to figure out what I would do next in my life.
Two or three years later, when my business partner and I had figured out how to sell our advertising agency, and I could move on to the next chapter of my life, I continued to use that sketch to confirm if I was still doing the right things. And every so often, I'd even slide my laptop into my backpack and pedal over to a local coffee shop to sit there, work on my next book, and make sure that this new lifestyle still felt as good as when I fantasized about it back in Coconut Grove.
That little drawing is still in my office and still represents a part of what I want to do.
What Do You Want?
I'm curious to know when you've had the type of moment or vision that helped you figure out what you wanted to do and where you wanted to go.
How were you able to visualize it?
How were you able to act on it?
And if you did make a significant change, did the reality of your new life or your new direction square up with the vision you had that caused you to make a switch?
Of course, it doesn't have to be a career change. It could be a change of venue, a change of personal status, a change of viewpoint, or a change of belief.
But whatever it is, I'd like to know how you identified it, acted on it, and evaluated the results as you looked to answer this question:
What do you want?
You’re right.
Given how our brain processes information, we cannot ignore any such surras……
I would call them a “near life experience”. Just as when you have a near death experience, it forces you to re examine everything, this near life experience makes you go WHOA, maybe there’s another way to do it.
Or, as they put it in Grosse Pointe Blank: shakubuku https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAlS_0wNUQg (If you look into shakubuku, you see that the GPB version is maybe a little simplified and not accurate to the original, but I am still here for the GPB shakubuku).
Keep up the good work.
B.
P.S. I almost did not take this photo, the flower was kind of “eh”, I ended up taking it, posting it and it is our most successful instagram post ever:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CwOHjRwLgcV/
Take the shot.
BEST QUESTION!
!!!!!!!
Thanks Bruce! I needed this reminder and to have the question called, again.
Appreciate these (you).
After private prep high school followed by a disappointing first year of college, I found a summer job working on Christo’s “Surrounded Islands” project. There I met some carefree people who lived on their sailboats in Coconut Grove’s free anchorage. When they told me their adventure stories I was hooked. I had always thought you could only find hardcore adventures in books and movies. I wanted me some of that!
By the time I pushed through to finish college — knowing all the while what I’d rather be doing — I was living aboard a small sailboat. On graduation, I left for the Bahamas with $30 in my pocket and a locker full of food and dreams. I spent the next 15 years living aboard and found plenty of my own adventure stories.
If I hadn’t met “Trimaran John” and the rest of the Steinbeckian entourage, I might never have known what I wanted or even considered it an option. Sometimes knowing what we want requires us to acknowledge the possibilities.
Thank you Dave. That’s a great story and very inspiring.
Come to think of it Kim, you’re in the perfect place to ask — and answer — it!