When Too Many Good Things Collide
I spent the past five days at an intense, amazing National Speakers Association conference called Influence 17. While there, we had 15-16 hour days of absorbing knowledge from experts and people one step farther down the path from where we are. It was the perfect collision of too many good things, all competing for my attention.
In the midst of all the wonderful things competing to grab my attention, I found that it wasn’t any of those things that brought me the best learnings from the conference. Instead, my key takeaways were a byproduct of the conference itself.
First, I walked away with an intense understanding of the need to connect with those further along the journey than I am. For much of my entrepreneurial career, I’ve figured things out on my own (and often the hard way). While this is sometimes the nature and path of my work, it doesn’t have to be done alone. During the conference, I connected with dozens of people who can help me on the next steps of my journey.
The connections I started this past week will continue to grow, but as with any relationship, I need to invest the time into the relationship. That’s become one of my primary goals for the rest of 2017 – leaning into the people resources around me. When others reach out to me, I count it a privilege to be a resource, and I need to remember others want to do the same for me. The competing goodness of accomplishing tasks will need to take a backseat to time needed to do this well.
The other takeaway had to do with recharging and prioritizing even if it means missing out on learning more good things. The final morning of the conference, I woke up tired (we were functioning on 5 – 6 hours of sleep) and in desperate need of coffee. By the time we arrived before the first session, the coffee was gone because everyone else was at the same stage as we were.
I took the moment to step away from the goodness offered by the scheduled morning session to find a small hotel coffee shop and outdoor seating area where I spent two hours going through my notes and organizing my action items. Those two hours helped me reset and refocus for our remaining time and even for a good portion of 2017. My only regret, that I didn’t do this every day of the conference.
We hear a lot about self-care these days, and most of us say it’s important. We don’t actually do anything about it though. My time there reminded me that self-care has multiple pieces to it, including building in relationship time and personal time. We are all individual and unique, so there’s no formula for the perfect sense of what we all need. I hope today you find a few minutes to do what refreshes you so we can continue moving the world forward together in the midst of too many good things!
Keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant, Sarah Gibson, helps organizations leverage the power of communication, teamwork and diversity to improve engagement and transform teams. To buy her book or inquire about her speaking programs, please visit www.sarahjgibson.com.
