I posted this message on my business blog today but I thought it had a place here as well.
There is a slot on BBC Radio 2 in the morning called ‘Pause For Thought’ and I hope that today’s posting will encourage you to pause for thought about your business and what it is there for.
This on the face of it will seem a really strange posting in the middle of a blog which is about developing a financially successful online business.
However bear with me – I am hoping to persuade you that you maybe need to look at your dreams, strategy and specific goals again.
- Are your dreams focused totally on what is important to you and what you want to be your legacy?
- Does your strategy include how your family fit in and is it congruent with their lives?
- Are your goals simply money focused?
What on earth has brought all of this on?
Nearly everyone experiences tragic events and personal heartaches, at one time or another in their lives, involving family, friends and colleagues that give them pause for thought.
I guess the most sobering is when something affects you so directly personally that you recognise and think about your own mortality and the fragility of life.
Hey this is getting heavy…
That is not my intention – I just want to encourage you to slow down, take a breather, sit down and think through what really IS important to you.
From my point of view – there have been several things recently that have coincided to bring on a reflective and re-evaluation of my own aspirations.
I have lost my mother and my father-in-law in the last few months and of course that brings inevitable sadness and sense of loss – but they had both reached a good old age and had lives that all the family can celebrate.
The next thing of note is that I personally have recently got a symptom which needs investigating (I’ll spare you the details). Now this can have so many causes from simple and relatively harmless through to very serious. I guess the worst part for me as an ex nurse is that I know exactly what diagnostic tests I am going to have to endure. I am so well in myself that I am sure I will be writing here in a few weeks time about a past health issue.
Next – another event that made me pause for thought. Daniel Wagner (a familiar name on this blog) of Your Internet Buddies had a car accident on route to a full day event which I was attending. He arrived at the event shaken but carried on to do the whole day in his usual humorous style. He showed us pictures of his car which had been hit by a lorry and clearly someone was looking after the car occupants that day because the damage was considerable. There is no doubt that Daniel and his partner had been very lucky and things could have been totally different.
The most recent event that has affected me though is a total and shocking tragedy. Two members of the congregation of the church I attend were killed in a light aircraft crash. Shoreland the pilot, in his mid 50s was a Consultant at Poole Hospital. He had a huge zest for life and lived it to the full. He leaves behind Helen (who works with my wife) and a lovely family who have been amazingly strong in their grief. The other occupant of the plane was Richard – who I did not know as well – who ran a successful business in Christchurch.
I am posting below a sermon (about 20 minutes) which will appeal to you if you are a Christian . The recording is of the vicar Andy Perry addressing us on the very day that we all learned about the tragedy. Andy abandoned his prepared address and spoke more or less off the cuff. Now of course it is to be expected that this is a Christian message – HOWEVER – I think there are messages for all which you can be interpret into your belief system.
You may not care to listen to a religious message – so I will select one point that Andy made which is true no matter what faith or belief you have. Andy was urging us to “Keep short accounts”. By that he meant do not leave things unresolved, or to fester. We don’t know our time – but if something happened to you today – would there be things unsaid, arguments unresolved, people unloved.
Anyway I found this talk profoundly moving and I sincerely hope it will give you Pause For Thought
What is important in your life and is the strategy that you have set forth in your business working towards that. Keep short accounts!
As someone who is normally upbeat – it is quite strange to write such a sobering post – however I think that the main message here is live life to the full – it is a gift – and you should make the most of it. That is not really a downbeat message.
