A Day to Remember

There are just some days you'll never forget. Do you have some of those?

For me, March 30 is one of them. Since it's my wife's birthday it's a good thing I don't forget about it! She's not excited about this particular birthday so I've had my work cut out for today! :) I'm up to that challenge!

Yet beyond the birth date of the woman of my dreams, March 30 also has two additional important memories for me, separated by a decade.

On this day in 1994 I delivered my first real public presentation. It was to an audience of 7,500 tech heads at a Microsoft conference in New Orleans. I was a mess. The presentation went great, as it turns out, but I was truly a wreck! You see in 1994 giving a presentation to a group of only 10 people was enough to keep me awake at night. Imagine 7,500. I could hardly eat or sleep for a week! You see, public speaking was one of my biggest fears. Amazingly (and ironically) only a decade later I do it for a living, loving every minute of it!

Is that possible? Can you imagine making a living a decade from now from the thing you fear most today? What would that be for you (post a comment below)? All I can tell you is that it can happen and the journey can be one of the greatest career adventures ever.

The other memory is less uplifting but important nonetheless. Dinah Kay Bussell passed away today after a hard fought battle with cancer that prematurely ended her life at the age of 29. Dinah is the wife of a dear colleauge of mine, Rob Bussell, with whom I collaborate at an excellent I.T. training organization in Chicago named Omicron. Rob is a gifted facilitator/teacher by profession but a remarkable husband and father at heart--a truly special person. Though I only knew Dinah from afar, her influence reaches to countless numbers of people who were blessed to have been part of her life.

The March 30 lessons for leaders: Make today memorable. Remember where you've come from. Blast through your fears. Life is short.

How can you make today memorable? What are you waiting for to start blasting through the things that you fear rather than be held hostage by them? Though Dinah's story reminds us there's no guarantee of tomorrow, may you make a memory today that will make this a special day for you in the future for years to come.

posted by Andy at 4:45 PM