Those heady times and the pursuit of WOW...

The following is the original and the rewrite can be found by clicking here.

During the heady times of the 80s and 90s* it seemed you just couldn't get enough of Tom Peters and his endless parade of books on leadership - In Search of Excellence, A Passion for Excellence, Thriving on Chaos, Circle of Innovation and finally my favourite, The Pursuit of WOW! (He has authored more but these are the ones I bought and have read to various degrees)

I would be hard pressed to give you specifics from the many pages after all this time but I will never forget the inherent meaning of WOW - Be it expressing astonishment or admiration or a sensational success or when you impress and excite someone greatly - It's a word that covers a lot of ground and works well with bold colours. WOW became the definitive emotional and qualitative measure for me; if you heard someone utter the word WOW, you were onto something**... the bigger the WOW, the bigger the success. 

It even worked it's way into the theme of one of our meetings where I amused the audience with "WOW stories", gifted everyone the book, and presented a teal shirt with the word WOW! emboldened on the front; we could not help but stand out as a united front of teal at that evening's baseball game and even made it onto the "Videotron".***

Why after all of these years was I reminded of The Pursuit of WOW!?

Honestly I could not tell you; maybe I was just day dreaming about those heady times of the past... although more likely somewhere in the "messed up filing system that is my brain", a small alarm went off signalling that I was not hearing WOW enough (either out of my mouth, or someone else's). 

Why did my brain do this? It is because hearing the word WOW tells you that you're "stretching yourself", reminds you to set the bar higher, motivates you to experience something new, indicates sensational success, and lets you know you are impressing and exciting someone greatly. Also, I suspect my brain wants to look back at 2016 as heady times. 

And if you decide to pursuit WOW, please don't turn it into one of those words like "awesome", "genius" or "brilliant" that are now grossly misused and trite - The Hubble telescope is "genius", not using two thermal sleeves on a very hot Starbuck's latte macchiato.****

iamgpe

* Were the 80s and 90s really that heady historically speaking? Probably not, but for me it was a time of great learning, experience building, and a great amount of fun & adventure.

** WOW does not replace hard data but it is an amazing lead indicator.

*** The Videotron is the large video screen at the stadium of the Toronto Blue Jays. At the time was called the SkyDome but is now the Rogers Centre. Don't ask me what team they were playing... it was a long time ago and there was beer.

**** I borrowed this line from Louis C.K who is in fact a comic genius.

The moment that defines us...

The following is the original and the rewrite can be found by clicking here.

I greet death differently now.

I suppose it was my sister's doing; that witching hour phone call, the lonely trip to the hospital and a quiet goodbye to who she used to be. I collected up her things and then in the silence of a new dawn walked back to the car... a forlorn scene as I balanced a vase and bamboo stalk along with her other possessions; the metaphor for the last seven months of her life. She was cremated five days later and her final resting place is an urn in the shape of a birth bath because she didn't want to be buried in the cold ground - She wanted to stay among the living. 

As a matter of course, the following days and weeks involved the contemplation of death; not a macabre examination of death itself but more a pursuit to understand life. There was the predictable reflection that life needs to be lived, all the while embracing trite words like "zest, gusto, bucket and list". In the end though, there was just the resignation to the inevitability of death and that our lives were then defined - Nothing more "can be written" that defines who we are, and what we have done.

I looked at the caller ID on my phone and was deeply saddened as I knew what would greet me when I answered; my long time friend Paul Sipprell had died after his long battle with cancer. His life's defining moment had come. 

Paul was a loving husband and father of two beautiful daughters, an accomplished graphic illustrator and artist who befriended everyone he met with humour, kindness and generosity. Avidly pursuing his outdoor passions until his mind could not convince his body anymore, Paul personified the grand appetite for life, adventure, friendship, bravery and the appreciation for a life lived - A life well defined by any measure.

I will miss my friend deeply and cannot help but consider what my defining moment will ultimately look like.

Rest in Peace Paul.

iamgpe

Stop and look at how far you've come...

This is actually meant to be more reflective than motivational; although let's see where it goes before any rash decisions are made as to what I'm actually talking about.

Recently I "reposted" an old blog that I wrote eighteen month ago (it is a personal favourite). What I expected to be a simple cut and paste exercise became a little more involved because there was sentence structure and punctuation that could be improved upon. Thank the "blogging gods" there were no spelling mistakes that I could see; pesky things.* Ultimately I clicked "publish", satisfied that my revision was a much tighter piece of writing than the original. And this got me to thinking... for good or bad.

Am I a great writer? Not today. Am I a good writer? It probably depends on the day, the phase of the moon and how much luck is with me at that moment. Am I a better writer? Absolutely, and here is why. I have written 128 blogs since that original post, edited dozens of project proposals and asked a very good friend of mine (who is a very good writer) how I am doing to which she tells me I am getting better; sometimes with a slight "wince" but she assures me I am much tighter with my words and thoughts.

Although there is credence in the old saying "practice makes perfect" and the statistic that 10,000 hours develops mastery, this is not what I had in mind when I started down this meandering path - I was being much more literal when I got to thinking and titled this "Stop and look at how far you've come..." I truly was thinking more along the lines of, "Literally stop what you are doing and take a look around to see how far you have come". To "see" your progress can be incredibly motivational; to visualize the ground covered, obstacles you've overcome and the skills developed on the way - It is exciting and re-energizing to see how far you've come and what you've accomplished.

Sure it is encouraging to see how much closer you are to your goal(s) but the value of understanding how far you've come is more important as it re-enforces accomplishment, allows you to understand your newly acquired skills, and ensures your activity is getting you closer to your goals. It is in this act of stopping and looking back you ensure you're current activity is what's needed, or sadly recognize that in effect, you really aren't doing anything at all. Either way you will know.

For me, I want to be a great writer and with the activity of blog writing I am becoming a better writer, and continue to head in the right direction. And how do I really know? In my recent "repost" I have received a number of comments, many "likes" and a large number of views, whereas with my original I had "zeros" across the board - I thought I would bring this up for those looking for objective data.

iamgpe

PS: Click here to see the re-write.

* Please let me know if you find a spelling mistake because those things are peskier than mosquitos.