My Life Is Waffle House!?

It is very interesting what one can learn from listening.

I treated my appetite and ignored my need for low a cholesterol diet (shhhh! If you don’t tell my doctor, it doesn’t count), and had breakfast at Waffle House "the other day." As I ate, I listened.

Karen is in her mid thirties, has two children and hates it when her kids stay home for snow days. She drives an older Nissan. She has a small space between her two front teeth that she tries to hide by rolling her lip over them when she is laughing. It doesn’t work.

The cook, an all but kid in his twenties, plans to get his GED this year and then study at the community college, or maybe join the Navy. He likes his job, and doesn’t cook rubber eggs. I think that is considered an accomplishment. I know my eggs were very tasty. I think his name is Mack, or Mick. He didn’t have on a name tag.

Betty is clearly the matriarch of the group. She smiles as she listens to the banter of the ‘younger’ staff. She moves effortlessly from one task to the next, often working ahead of the others. She greets regulars by their first name, or with a knowing nod. Her under the cuff comments to the others often brings a smile or a giggle. Betty is, and wants to be the Queen of the WaffleHouse.

As I sat at the counter, eating my cheese eggs, grits and butter soaked raisin toast, gazing at the laminated menu pictures of the many heart-stopping, artery clogging, cholesterol enhanced foods, this thought crossed my mind: Is there really a difference between any of our lives, other than the package that that life might reside in?

Your Beauty Stops

Your beauty
Laid out before me
Stops

Your beauty
Laid out before me

Orange hues wrapped in purple haze
This sky
Brushed upon a palette
By the descending of the sun
Layers
Broadcasting the coming night
Filled with hope and promise
Your beauty is laid out for me

A beauty that seeks me
Reaches out and touches my eyes
Causing them to scan for you

A beauty that grazes my thoughts
Hunting for understanding
Beyond knowing the work of light
Reflecting through prisms
And chemicals reacting in mist
Longing to be known

Your beauty
Laid out before me ready to be known
As in an embrace lovers know
The caress of wonder
Possibilities of tomorrow
In each gentle sigh
Each kiss of moisture

Your beauty
Laid out before me stops

Longing is left alone
Desire
Calm and undisturbed
Even as your wonder
Strikes the lenses of my sight
Pounding
Nothing but a distant echo

Is heard

Tonight…

Accidently Developing A Personal Brand

I launched this website and moved my blog over here just a few months ago. Now that I've settled into the new design and look, I'm very pleased. Thanks to the folks over at BEM Interactive (my employer - nothing like a little brown nosing) for helping me set things up and hosting the site.

This feels very much like my place. The design rightly reflects my personal energy and approach - right down to the rolling steam off the coffee cup. I'm always ready for some creativity over a cup of coffee.

"The other day" I attended a Linking Greensboro event and won a door prize of a free business card design from a local graphic artist and marketing consultant. We met, and I simply directed her to this site for artistic direction. Along with information she gleaned from our conversations, she designed a wonderful card for me to use to promote my non-employment self for speaking and teaching engagements. The design of the card, front and back, is below.

All of this to say, THANK YOU Danielle Hatfield (@dhatfield) for a professional, playful and accurate representation of me!

Time Will Tell

Situation: A couple, newly together, watches a DVD together. She falls asleep half-way through. The next morning he sends her an email…

“Thank you so much for last night. It is wonderful to have someone who thinks enough of me to watch what I wanted to see. I know you don’t like horror that much. You were obviously very tired. I’m delighted you were comfortable enough with me to fall asleep. I wore the same shirt today because you left a tiny bit of drool on my sleeve and I wanted to keep you close. See you tonight.”

Same couple, same evening, five years later…

“I don’t get you! Not only do you not care about anything I want to watch but you fell asleep on my favorite shirt and drooled all night! Next time, just go to bed. I’ll be home at 7:00.”

Same couple, same evening, 15 years…

“Enjoyed the movie. I dropped off the laundry (I got something on my shirt). Did you take the DVD back? Pick up something else when you go – one of your favorites this time. Oh, I’ll be home at 5:30, do you want to go out for dinner? You pick.”

The One Word for Access to Success

Yoda said it this way, “There is no try. Only do or do not.”

Nike said, “Just Do It!”

The word is out, and yet we too often keep using it. My days are busy rushing to get things done, and someone asks me to do one more thing. Instinctively, I hedge my commitment with, “I’ll try.” A colleague offers a valid improvement in my technique and suggests that I make a change. Hesitantly I agree, “O.K. I’ll try.”

The difference e between saying “try” and “do” may seem subtle, but it is powerful.

Find a pencil or pen right now.

Yes. Really. Go find one.

Set the pencil on the table in front of you. Now ‘try’ and pick it up. Fact is, either you did it, or you didn’t. Yoda is right. There is no try. Try is something we are not committed to doing.

My suggestion for today is that we stop saying ‘try’ and make the commitment to do things we need to do, or simply want to do. Proclaiming “I’ll do it” may lead us to failure, but failure is the friction that makes success possible – and that is another post…

Do It!