A life's Work

I was at a retirement celebration for a customer of mine on Wednesday evening. Along with this ladies her very impressive 40 year business career, her impact in community shows the great things people can do with their lives outside of their 9-5 jobs.

On the subway ride home, I'm thinking to myself, I'm almost half-way through my career (that is if I retire at the ripe of age 65), so what will people say about moi.

I'm not expecting to necessarily have a huge business successes of someone like this person, or even as large an impact on the community, but one thing she said gave me a little hope that my work life is more than just a way to earn a living, keeping your brain active or even providing some value to your customers. She said that the most important thing from her work life that she'll remember is all the great people she met and worked with !

This however, raises a few questions for me (working in a remote office*) or for people who work as sole proprietors. Are the relationships we have with our local customers become as valued as the work colleague ? It also raises the question of whether you should make friends or build strong relationships with people you work with.

This event also reminded me of my father's retirement last year. Without getting too personal, one thing that I said in my congratulatory speech was how he was a man who truly loved his work. And then, relating back to what I heard this week from this lady, was how work ultimately has become her life. This however seems to go against the principles of working to live ! But you can't argue, that to get the most out of this short life, enjoying your work makes it all the more better.

I find that hearing about the joy of their working worlds when people retire, provides some inspiration in my life. I enjoy my work, I can honestly say I consider many people I've worked with as friends and I'm certain I'll look back on the past and have very fond memories of the cast of characters I've worked with. Maybe a few will remember me when it's all over as well.

* business term, a remote office is an office in a separate city from HQ, normally dedicated to local sales activities and usually only having a handful of non-conforming-like staff. It is not remote in the sense of the outback, Siberia or the Arctic. Quite the opposite, the remote office is quite often situated in downtown urban areas.

Quite the ride

no, I'm (still) not talking about Disney (yet).

DB sent me this link from YouTube the other day showing a test drive of the fastest production car in the world - The Bugatti Veyron.

407 km/h, 253 mph.

I'm sure he was going to run out of road - they only had 5.5 miles of straight !

Lots of great F1 comments too.

I didn't know Stephen Fry was a race car driver !

Thoughts of the day

Keeping or putting life in balance. I think it's important to notice that sometimes you get out of balance, you become more self focused for a few days, you neglect work responsibilities a little too easily, you forget about that house fix up item. These imbalances are ok on occasion, but it's important to recognize them before they start negatively impacting the people you care about or worse, they become chronic.

Talk to people like they are children. Well that may be a bit of a stretch, but my wife just handed me a book that I'm instantly enjoying, it's called How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk. The interesting thing is that I think you could easily improve your relationships with your family, friends and even business people by following some of the ideas in this book. After all, adults have feelings too.