A little more time

I had a lunch the other day with one of my clients. We ended up getting rather philosophical over her soup and my tortilla.

She told me about a project that her two sisters and her had given their parents. They provided their parents with a scrapbook and a long list of deep and probing questions about events in their lives. Surprisingly enough, the parents expended an enormous amount of energy and produced an incredible piece of work. Actually, it’s probably not that surprising, as this project gave them the opportunity to leave a legacy.

One of the questions was ‘What would you have done differently?’ They got two distinctly different answers. Mom was clear that she would have changed nothing about the way she had lived her life. Dad’s answer was more telling. He would have preferred to spend more time with his family and taken more risks in his business. The latter, I suppose, may have created the time for the former.

This answer does not surprise me at all. Men are conditioned to go to work, spend their lives working, and then retire to do some travelling. As a general rule, it is nonsense. Life is not about retirement, it is about the here and now. Nothing important is worth putting off until later because everything will be completely different then!

His answer was good for me, in an unexpected way. My own business is doing well at the moment. Unfortunately, it has eaten into my family time, taken away my surfing, and usurped all of my freedom. The very reasons I left work and started something small! I have some interesting strategic choices to make. If I am conservative, I will keep on doing things in the same way, and perhaps little by little give up my dream. If I take some risks, just maybe, I can have both.

It is time for some risk!!!