This one's for Shane and for Josh, who commented on a previous blog the other day.
The blog that I'd written about was travelling to the south coast to work with two practices there on a half-day master class, a half-day business coaching session. I was complaining in the blog, whinging about travelling so far (despite how much I get paid) and about complaining between the difference of a freelancer and an entrepreneur.
Josh was the one who stuck his neck out; he made it so that I would be contacted and asked to come - who ‘sold it’. I wanted to do it because Josh was asking, because Josh had come to help us, and he'd spoken at our Learning from Failure Conference so amazingly last year. But I wanted to do it because he asked, and I have a position —a most privileged position— where I can say yes or no when I'm asked.
The reason the blog is a whinge, though, is because it's got to be authentic and honest and because people say, well, “it's all right for you”, which happens not infrequently.
It's all right for you to travel to the South coast and get paid that money to come back to sit on the train all day and do some work, “It's alright with you, with your big practice, in Edwalton”, it's all right for you, etc etc.
Of course, when you see people and think it's all right for you, there's generally a backstory behind how you got there and how you stay there that people don't see, and that's what the whinge is about.
Not to demonstrate it for me, but to demonstrate it for other people, because jumping about doing this stuff takes effort and time and stress, but more importantly, time away from the family that has to be chosen or not. And so, for Josh to comment, I was grateful, but more grateful for him to put his hand up and ask me to come. I was glad to be there.
Shane, on the other hand, is a different matter.
Shane consistently comments and talks to me through the blog, and has done so for years.
It's a joy to get comments; it’s a joy to get people talking to you; it’s a real privilege when someone says it made a difference. And so, this is not me reaching out asking for people to comment all the time, but it's just to say thanks to someone who did, time after time after time.
There are a few of you guys —you know who you are —and I just wanted to say that I am super grateful and that it is definitely all right with me.
PS. Shane, I'm not giving it up anytime soon!
Blog Post Number - 4318