Sometimes, things just aren’t right.
You’ve been there; I know you’ve been there.
Sausalito, CA, is a place everyone told me was amazing. It is beautiful. My hosts were astonishing! The wifi worked.
But, man, something didn’t feel right.
I never got on my game.
I never settled in, really.
Maybe, it was the cat. But, this is for sure:
Just because everyone tells you something is going to be awesome… doesn’t mean it’s going to be awesome for you.
Yeah… that’s what I was supposed to learn in Sausalito.
…or maybe not. Maybe there wasn’t anything to learn. Maybe it just was.
Maybe the lesson was …that there was no lesson.
Freedom
… or maybe…
just maybe…
Sausalito, and all of it’s not-right-atude was a stupidly huge metaphor.
You can leave.
See, that’s true freedom.
I could have gotten up, packed my things, and simply left. It just wasn’t working there. Nothing seemed to work out right. Projects kept stalling. This site crashed. I lost a client. Running was a nightmare. I couldn’t sleep. Yoga was impossible. Everything was expensive. BUT, I could have just left.
Freedom is the ability to make your own choice.
I throw the term “professional freedom” around a lot, but that boils down to one single, solitary thing: Making your own choices.
THAT is good ju-ju.
What Is Your Life, Really?
I definitely could have left Sausalito, but I didn’t. I didn’t because for the month of everything-not-working-out that happened there, I spent a few hours at a client’s wedding.
I even got a picture of the bride, in her wedding dress, on a paddle board.
Being there for an important day for someone is what life is about. Well, for me. You may have other priorities. Just make sure you keep them priorities.
If you ask me to bear a couple weeks of crap for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I’ll do it every time. In Sausalito, I sat through a lot of bad ju-ju for “I was there when you two got married.”
Yep. I’d do it every time.
What are you sucking up? Is the reward worth it? Is the payoff once-in-a-lifetime?
Are you really free? …or just taking on bad ju-ju?
Note: In Chicago, I talked about building your business with people you enjoy. Sally got my name from a Marin County Linked In group. That’s across the entire country from where I’m located. One of my previous clients had posted the info.
Though we had never met, we work well together. It’s a partnership that works for both of us – and we both enjoy working with each other. In fact, the first time we met face to face was the month in Sausalito, preceding her wedding that I’m honored to have attended.
THAT is the client I built my business for.
