The Desert of Arizona
Sunny and Smoky 68 Degrees
About 2 days ago, a forest fire started in Oak Creek Canyon, about 15 minutes away from where I’m sitting now.
In about 24 hours, the fire grew from 4 acres to a current 4,800 acres. And last night, the winds shifted and Sedona woke up to a ton of smoke. It’s starting to clear, but early this morning, it basically smelled like we were living in the middle of a BBQ. You can see what’s going on here courtesy of NBC News.
Clearly our position is much better than the hundreds of fire fighters that are trying to get this fire under control. And we’re far better off than all of the folks that have had to evacuate. But breathing smoke isn’t such a great thing for little kids or people with breathing issues.
And this leads me to the point of today’s issue. Sometimes, shit happens. Clients hate your work, you get fired, you lose your main income stream. It happens.
Living in fear of these things doesn’t help. What does help is developing the skill to move forward in spite of circumstances. And to be able to do it without the emotional charge than can make you do stupid things.
A lot of people think that getting clients, working with them and keeping them is about following some marketing recipe–like all they need is a list of dos and don’ts.
That’s part of it, I guess, but you’re really doing yourself a disservice if you don’t dig deeper into what this business is really about.
On the surface it looks like you’re “working with clients.” In my experience, this business is a never ending education (full of learning opportunities) for how you become a better and more effective version of yourself tomorrow than you are today.
You can learn from the lessons and evolve, or you can refuse to learn them and continue to repeat them until you surrender.
Surrender is not about weakness, it is one of the most powerful positions possible to navigate your way through life.