Coming Back to Life

This week, someone finally turned on the Summer Switch here in Vancouver – it’s been cloudy and cool all the way through June, while the rest of the country has already had the opportunity to complain about the too-hot weather. I’m sweating here today, and absolutely loving it. A big part of the reason for this basking is the completion of another cycle, one that started just about 2 years ago, and I’ll be glad to see the tail end of that one.

In June, 2008, Clarrus had the best month so far in terms of revenues. I had just finished my first round of work with Samsung in Seoul. That first half of the year was absolutely stellar, and I was doing what consultants have droned into them from the first day of stepping out on their own: I was making hay while the sun shone. The sun certainly shone brightly for the first half of that year.

Then, the wheels fell off. I went down with pneumonia and laryngitis soon after getting back from Seoul, which isn’t really a good thing for someone who speaks for a living. All that hay that I made while the sun shone ended up covering us while I was recovering. When I did get back into the classroom, I used a microphone for a while until my voice completely recovered.

All sorts of other stuff went on as well. My sister passed away, which threw me (and the rest of the family) for quite a loop, the business economy fell off the end of the world, and the mostly reliable US clients for training stopped spending money. We spent a month in France, which was a great trip but quite an expense. One of our tenants skipped town, and those lovely folks at the border decided I was not a person who should be allowed to enter into their country to improve the productivity of their workers. The list goes on: this isn’t everything, mind you, but you get the picture, you have probably read some of the results in past blog entries, and I’m more interested in talking about the future, not the past here.

The one thing, the last bit of baggage that I am dealing with right now is this project that has been dragging me down for the past 9 months or so. I’m sure there will be Clarrus posts about that project in the future (there have been some very oblique ones already), suffice it to say that it seems I need to take on a really stupid, nasty project every 15 years or so, just to remind myself of how bad it can really get. And that project is coming to an end. This project has consumed me, if not right away, certainly for the last 6 months or so. Putting in far more hours than I should have, turning away other work, shutting down most of my writing, turning away my family, struggling through to get this done. Working with wonderful people and learning a lot, mind you, but the project was painful just the same.

Last Friday was the last formal deadline (that was handed to me), and now it’s a matter of tying up loose ends. Even though there is some work left to do, I feel as though a great burden has been lifted. I can pick up my guitar without feeling guilty, I can step away from the computer at 5:00, and some nights I don’t go back to it ’till morning. The bottom line is that I am not a slave to this thing anymore, and it feels like a fitting end to the past two years.

I remember when we were back in Ontario for my sister’s funeral, one of my nieces-in-law took me aside (thanks) and told me a story of how her dad would run himself into the ground, and that I reminded her of him. A cautionary tale that I need to take to heart, it’s funny how it takes someone outside the bubble to really see what’s happening on the inside (the secret of good consulting there…).

It feels like I now have an opportunity to finally come back to life.

I can take some time over the summer and reacquaint myself with my family and friends. I can focus on bringing the business back to where I want it to be (with reasonable care), and focus on choosing the work that I want to do (already turned down one thing earlier today, and felt good about it). Get caught up with Owen on the guitar, do those things that I have wanted to do for some time now, but couldn’t find the time. Maybe even (gasp!) read a book for pleasure and not feel guilty about it.

I feel for the first time in two years that the future holds all kinds of opportunity. If I was so inclined, I’d say the world is my oyster right now, but oysters gross me out. Maybe the world is my crème brulée. Yum!

I have no idea how this will play out, but I have lots of ideas. I like the idea of playing with these ideas. I do know how I don’t want it to play out, and I just re-learned the lesson of what can happen if I don’t take due care.

Watch out, world – here I come!

Watch this space for future details. I expect less of that dark stuff from here on in…