Sunday, March 15, 2009

Take Away Worry Tools

I am sitting in my office in my peach colored bathrobe responding to a media request. The journalist is asking for things that I do that make me stop worrying about my business and appreciate the richness of my life. Here are my 'Take Away Worry" tools.
Today, I am going to get my hair done, have a casual lunch with a friend, walk the dog and go to dinner and concert with another friend.
Tomorrow I am cooking dinner for a friend who is doing two peoples jobs and therefore working late every night and working weekends all this in order to make sure she keeps her job. Tuesday I a baking a birthday cake ( Baking is hard for me, but strawberry cake is a favorite of my guests) and cooking dinner for a couple one of whom is now, do to a job loss, currently the only income provider for the family. Being with friends is an wonderful "take away worry" tool. Cooking calms me. It’s something I can take from beginning to end with concrete evidence that I can create. And it’s cheap!
Work and writing make me feel wonderful and believe me I a blessed to have great speaking engagements and I am so grateful to be working. I even after all these years I am still filled with this thrill and giddy appreciation every single moment I am in front of an audience. And when I start to worry and I am not speaking I can always write, When I am done writing something, be it an article or a book I feel enormous satisfaction.
And thank goodness for my wonderful friendships and my friends and family and my sweetie. They are all are really funny and we laugh a lot, so in the last month even when a clients cancels a speaking engagement (This something that is happening a lot to speakers who work in the convention industry and for me its happening for the first time in 27 years in business.) I know I can talk with a loved one and be laughing with happiness in minutes. My dog Bo has a tremendous joy for living. I know if I start to worry about the future and what might happen all I need to do is look at him and say, “Walk outside?”and he starts smiling and jumping and wagging his tale and everything is wonderful again. I just realized that all my “take worry away” tools are about being in the present moment, and not borrowing worry from the future. So I think I will stay right here right now, not open my mutual fund statements, not get into conversations about how horrible the economy is and "do and be: rather than worry

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