Dancing Alone In Your Underwear Won't Get You There
So I had a very interesting day today in which I was talking over several ideas and concepts I have been vacillating on over the past few days with some key people in my core network. My core network is made up of people that I know I can count on to listen to me without judgment and who have my best interest at heart. They are people I trust emphatically and whom I know will listen to my long-winded ramblings and half-baked ideas and in the end will tell me with as much support and appreciation as they can, I am either brilliant or out of my rabbit ass mind.
Today the feedback was a little bit of both.
I have found that I have had a plethora of amazing ideas that I have been fortunate to discover and cultivate these past few months. Some of which I know I can execute on and do it without too much trouble by myself. Some will likely go no where. And yet still others have so much potential but require far more talent, skills and abilities than I could possibly possess on my own that I know other people will have to get involved. And through the vetting of these ideas and concepts, I am beginning to gain some clarity as to what direction I want to take this next phase of my life and career and whom the dances will be with.
As I bumped along from meeting to meeting today I realized just how fortunate I am to have such amazing people from which I can draw such inspiration, motivation and honesty. I used to be the kind of person that wasn't likely to share my ideas with anyone for fear that someone might steal them. What I found after a couple of years was I was still the same old guy carrying around a notebook full of great ideas but no further down the road to execution than the day that I had penned them. I was like Rain Main searching for my next Judge Wapner fix and somehow, someway, alone, finding a television with a channel 4 at 4PM was never going to happen.
Those people who come into your life that invest a piece of their self in you are those people who become the "dance partners" of your life. Nothing happens in a vacuum and therefore much of what we all would like to accomplish is difficult to do alone. Thus finding, utilizing and appreciating those who are there to support you is essential if you are to discover your path and progress in your journey.
Dancing alone in your underwear with Bob Segar playing in the background might be a great way to spend a Friday night but it isn't a way to get that next great idea off the ground of build that company you know you destined to build. For me it takes those dance partners who would undoubtedly laugh their proverbial asses off at the site of me in my underwear who would, in between guttural snorts of amusement at my lack of rhythm, tell me to grab some damn pants.
There is work to do!
Thank you to all my loyal "dance partners" whom without you, my journey would be a shallow one and my successes limited and few and far between.
Ripple On and turn up that stereo so your partners can dance too!
Have a great weekend!
Steve Harper
