Peer Learning – What an Experience
Jan 23rd
As I head back home after a long couple of days, it’s truly hard not to be excited to get back into the office and get started on the many ideas generated. I am looking forward to working with Randy from VACS out in St. Catherines and Cameron from Sygnet in the GTA to help our peer Jas at Jio Infotech in Surrey to keep focused.
Each quarter when we meet, I get so stressed and push really hard to meet my goals and hate to get up in front of the group if we haven’t been as sucessful as we had hoped. My biggest takeaway from this week’s meetings was that we all truly care about the others and the businesses. If I am having issues with meeting my goals, I am best to let others know early in the quarter as others are willing to help.
What a true testament to the power of peer development.
Just Showing Up
Jan 22nd
This week I am in Vancouver to meet with my HTG group and continue the great discussions that we have around building our businesses. A few of us in the group had the opportunity to drop in on Jas and the VanSBS User Group last night and take in the fellowship and excitement that each of those in attendance had for growing their businesses. Stuart Crawford spoke on the topic of “Stepping Out On The Right Foot in 2009″ and Arif Mulji from Popcorn Technologies presented on how they can partner with the local VARs and meet their customer’s needs with MOSS and other customized Microsoft technologies. Throughout the evening, either Stuart or Arif made the comment, “80% of success is just showing up.” It’s amazing how true this is in so many different areas.
Over the past few months, I’ve had the great opportunity to work a team of people at our church in Beaumont to start a Young Adult and Newly Married’s ministry. We’ve had an event almost every month for the last 6 or 7 months. I am always amazed at the number of people who sign up to come to and event, but never show up. Jasminder Rai at VanSBS was saying the same thing about the user group. They had 37 people signed up for the event last night, but only 16 were in attendance. This seems to be a common trend in this day and age. More and more people see it as okay to just not show up.
If 80% of success is “just showing up”, how can we expect to get ahead in life and grow our relationships with others. I can’t help but think of fishermen that Jesus told to go back out onto the water and fish even though they had just got back to land and spent hours with no success. Those fishermen who went back out caught more than their nets and boats could handle. All they did was show up!
Time passes by
Jan 14th
Its amazing what happens when you run into people you haven’t seen since high school. I dropped by one of our local Starbucks yesterday afternoon to grab coffee and get some work done between meetings. Now I thought I recognized one of the baristas from somewhere, but by the end of our transaction I had put the peices together and knew who she was. I had remembered an awkward moment in our past and didn’t really want to “rekindle” the friendship, so I said nothing and went on. Well, just as I get my coffee, she puts the pieces together and confirms who I am and such and says “Do you remember me?” There were a few events that she described to “help” me remember. What do I do? All I did was say, “Oh yeah, I think I remember. Good to see you again.” and left. What a jerk!
Starting a New Year!
Jan 14th
Now I know that we’ve already spent the last 2 weeks in 2009, but I’ve finally started putting some of my new year’s plans in order. I always find it humorous every year when I spend the last week or two thinking about how the year is going to be different and how I am going to get a chance to put all of the things in my life back in order. So I do the things that you’re supposed to do – write goals and actually put them on paper. Then as Christmas winds down, I reveiw my goals and what I want to do to make the new year my best year yet and wait for Jan 1! We don’t do anything big or crazy on new year’s eve, just have a few friends over and fondue. I really don’t think new year’s eve would be the same without a fondue. We stay up late and celebrate the coming of the new year, have a toast, kiss my bride and head off to bed.
