Today, calendar spots.  Setting appointments.  That’s the aim.  No selling, just setting up meetings.  And tell the people, the prospects, that’s what you’re there to do.  Don’t sell, don’t try too hard, just communicate.  Be out there in front of people, speaking…. Obvious notes to self but I had to note them. Hoping anyone in the like-position or role, whether sales or marketing or something mirroring can benefit and if not learn then be provoked to think of a new approach to their day, their work.  Van Gogh said he dreams his paintings and paints his dreams.  That’s what we all are, as business people.  Painters.  We draw and color our desired reality and stage as we wish it played.

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Time passes us far faster than we estimate or can appreciate, so just draw.  Be wild, mad, free in your productivity.

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6:14.  9.5 miles later and I’m

a leg up on the day, maybe more with the thousand or so words I earlier wrote.  I do feel tired still, a bit, but the run woke me.  Going down to Novato, hopefully get some appointments set for businesses and executives to me.  Need to shave, wear clothes bought last night.  Hopefully that shirt fits.  After work, home.  Wine and laundry.  Bed early more or less, again.  And if not, then I run in the heat.  OR at night.  At some point.  No more excuses, no more anything that… well, can’t run tomorrow night.  Have a Pinot tasting at Mom and Dad’s, and I need to get a couple Pinots for that.  I’ll hit Oliver’s tonight, get a burrito or something.

I now feel the tired wings wrap me in its intentions.  Just have to keep moving.  Dinner, laundry, just realized this is not a fun topic to write, and I bet even more painful to read.  I need to travel.  Even my kids are in DC now after spending a couple nights in NYC, seeing a Broadway show.  That’s it.  Travel.  And a weekend day in Napa doesn’t count, fun as it was.

Pinot Noir… tonight.  Budget is…. What.  Maybe get dinner at Oliver’s then head to Bottle Barn.  I don’t know.  I overthink.  And I’ve noticed myself doing it A LOT, lately.

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7/8/19

Busy day.  Caught self overthinking a bit ago.  But resolved.  Don’t think.  Just move, act, create.

Going shopping for some new work articles, then home for dinner, little writing and bed early.  Tomorrow a 4am-er. Told Abraham I’d be there, and more than that I WANT to be there.  For me.  Try for 9 miles.  Then the next day, the next, and all remaining.

Rest of day planned to not any kind of boring degree.  Hear people around me in leave mode, but I’m still in the propelled personification I had this morning. Work, as an idea, and one stretching from wine.  I think about all the work that involves in winemaking, how strenuous it is, the early rises but even more than that, the containment, more than focus or fixation, but IT.  The IT to it all.  All this.

Setting out running uniform, or not uniform but you know what I mean, tonight.  Shoes out, untied, phone charged, headphones, everything.  If I can, leave before 4 like I did that one time.

Phone at desk set up, voice message and my name for in-office comm.  Only minutes from leave.  Day for tomorrow more or less planned.  Meeting in morning, out in Field later in day and for most of the day’s remainder.

Put trash cans out.  Can’t forget to do that… not that exciting a detail but one with which everyone is familiar.  In bed before ten, the aim.  Going over to-do plate, not so much a list just a bunch of slop on a plate.

4:50, been chewing this gum since before the meeting we just had, which started at 3 and Shannon and myself nearly missed having lunch out right before.  Work versus time.  How to approach, how to consider, how to be place and put-together as character, for character and story.

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Decided on the breakroom for lunch, not one of those thinking pods.  Not hungry, so I won’t be distracted by food, and I think I’m good on caffeine so no coffee.  Chewing gum I took from my neighbor John’s desk.  Relax, meditation, thinking of this whole envelope to tasting room, or winery, or vineyard story.  Where I am in life and not that I have to plan how I want to be remembered or anything that morbid or depressing, but I’m definitely in the mind of ‘here and forward’.  So, here an forward, putting more in that envelope and not be tempted to ever take anything out.  Touring with my wines and writing people’s reactions to everything I pour.  Other day pouring for those two girls and how their favorites were mine as well and how that one wine brought a decided direction to our interaction.  Wine is not only in my story but IS my story.

The ’07 Dutcher  Crossing entity with which Jesse and I interacted at dinner the other night, telling me so much and reminding me why I am where I am, what I’m doing with wine.  How I want that ferocity and form, character and charisma in the bottles I pour, what I make from my vineyard.  Honestly, I expected something to be off, but the Cabernet thieved its own muse, which gave me a book title idea and shoved me into more wined realization.  We poured, Jesse and I after the waitress poured just a tasting room amount into our glasses, appreciating the olfactory steps from the bottle to our senses and were startled.  One sip, after glass tip where I could only notice a sliver of color decline and I’m still not completely certain I saw any, stunned.  We both were.  We shortly thereafter talked wine business and what we see in our soon-days of wine life. We talked about wine brokering, but that’s not really what I want of course and I don’t think he does either.  The wine spawned new thought, new direction. What’s in that envelope at home, the days onward.

Breakroom where I can’t break.  I can’t just read some magazine, or even the book from Father’s Day I was given.  But then I think of the title, Destiny Thief, and I notice more intersection.  Can barely wait for the tasting room, Sunday.  Seeing that Room as mine, how I discuss all wines, my favorite of course but more, more, more wined story and words.  And they are MY words, even if people take not kindly to them like my sister the other night when she thought I was referring to one of her wines, the three vineyard Zin blend, saying it was reductive.  She said sharply and with stern ire “It’s not reductive.” I corrected her and specified I was addressing the Sbragia Petite Sirah Dad opened.  She apologized, but continued to dispute my observation, which is her right.  I moved on and examined the wine more.  Still, still with that slow musty circular sense.  Either way, like with the two girls from Lancaster, there was an interaction from a singular wine.  That envelope, at home, will bring more of this.  More books, more muse and pages to thieve.

 

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Hot outside, here in Brentwood. Thinking about my kids, Jack reading aloud to himself in the morning and Emma pretending to be a teacher like her mama. Me a father and 40, where I’m going and where I am, the whole way down here on my thoughts. Not looking forward to walking around in this heat, but I will. Plan laid for day. Just need to follow, follow through.

Write when back in office. Read book Mom got me for Father’s Day, tonight. Bed early, wake early, make coffee for morning…. stop saying and just set yourself in such scene.

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Minutes before team gets here.  Selling everything like I do wine, I tell myself about something I have approaching.  Selling should never be selling as I’ve noted in the past, in recent entries and if not then recent writings.  Genuine, present, connected communication.  Telling the story while listening to someone else’s narrative and deeply considering that.  An interaction but more.  More rich and textured talk.  Thinking of how the wineries I’ve worked at in the past, and other jobs, how their intention and focus on the sale, on conversion, is far too obvious.

I’ve now elected to embody new motion, a new beat for the purpose of building business and selling.  And that is to do anything but. Talk to people, meet them, know them better than I know what I’m representing.  Wine is life, and I sell life, if anything.  How incredible it is to be here, PRESENT, and with the opportunity to know people, know what they want, help them get there… to their There.

Not many people like to be sold, or want to be.  They want to be happy, they want to enjoy the moment, the conversation.  That’s my focus, their enjoyment of the interaction.  Still developing these notes, but I am developing them and playing with approaches and methods of doing so.  So…. Off into the Field and day, where I put such to practice.

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6/13/19

In house today.  For some reason.  Keeping self busy with projects and note-taking.  Writing plan for day.  Plan to run at lunch, taking lunch early, hopefully.  Not too hot, I checked.  People around me talking, wonder how much work they’ve done so far today talking about movies as much as they are.  Makes me want to write a script.  On working in a tasting room.  Didn’t I have a project on that, at one point.  Yes!  It was called Tasting The Room.  What happened to that?  I remember I started writing it while at St. Francis.

Opened the Tin Barn Syrah last night.  Not bad.  Certainly not impressive or inspiring or convincing of any new Beat or Road, in any way.  But I did have a couple glasses.  The Syrah in my tasting room will be far more expository and loud than the Tin Barn.  I can taste it now.

Plan for day—Run at noon.  Write notes throughout day.  After clocking out go to nook and write, a thousand words for no specific project.  Post it all to the bottledaux blog.

But what about a book.

What about one.

Just keep writing.  Everything in this office this morning and for the stretch of the day will push me to my There as that’s what I demand it do.

Sparking water, latte done.  Everything is to be written.  Everything is something on the Road, in the book.  THIS book.

9:33…. Need a break, soon.  Sooner than maybe I’m perceiving and formulating in my A.M. head.

10:04, and I’m in a circle pattern, holding pattern, some pattern where there’s no real pattern being established or reiterated.

 

2:36.  After run.  7 miles.  Not hungry, but a little tired.  Thirsty again.  What’s the next thing in the day…. The next… thing.  What’s happened so far.  Not much.  Make something happen.  I know…..

3:25, coffee.  Didn’t do what I wanted, the ‘what next’ dilemma.  I know now, though.  So… here I go.

Started a new haiku stream.  Just wrote one, but will write another soon.  Maybe in a minute.  All work done.  So now what. One of those things, thoughts, sip the coffee that’ll help.

 

3:58 and two haikus done.  Will type later.  Or I’m hoping to.  Coffee absolutely helping.  Will revisit that Syrah tonight.  Not excited about it, but I will do so and write about her and the Pinot I had… Raeburn?  Is that how you spell it?  Feel my mood getting rattlesnake-like.  Hunger, hungry, could use something.  What.  French fries and Pinot?  Warriors game on tonight.  May watch with Alice and babies. Know little Kerouac will want to see game, his favorite player Mr. Curry.

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