Tag: lifestyle

Categories
Health/Wellness

1/3/22

8:18am, still waking up, but waking up.  This year is going to be resplendent, I can sense it, intensely.  Couple housecleaning items first, then into the prospecting and farming form.

May need a power nap, earlier rather than later.  They saiid it would rain, but….  Didn’t see any drops on either the truck nor the POS Prius.  I am struggling a bit to wake.  Must be the last glass I had, a bit late, St. Francis Claret.  Planning a no-wine night, tonight.  Wake early like my friend, start the day more wildly, more of a Jack London-type writer waking at 5 or earlier, before the sun has a chance of showing itself like I did yesterday.

Writing sales, about sales, how to… or no, not a “How-to”, but notes on approach, attitude (which more and more for me is a focus and occasional struggle).  “It’s NOT Sales” I write in Paris journal.  Possible book title maybe?  Finding the humor in this AE character, selling anything…. It helps, more and more I realize getting older and having this quota hovering over my head like some swarm.

I’m stuck.  Not sure what happened.  The energy with which I approach this Nook office went somewhere.  Maybe make another cup, watch the news for a bit.

One thing off the to-do list for day, regarding one of my billing fiascos.  DONE.  Thanks be to the Universe…. Starting 2022 Conversations list on AE laptop.  Okay… coffee, news, relax.

……..

1:50pm, up from nap.  Couple emails land, I respond.  Meeting in just over an hour.  Haven’t been outside yet.  Don’t see any evidence of rain or any suggestion that it WILL rain.  Sue sends me a video of sideways snow in Sunriver.  Beyond jealous.  Soon, I say to myself in some sort of assurance..

Double-espresso to wake me up a little.  Going about prospecting altogether differently, as you already know.  Just reached out to maybe five or six individuals.  That’s another thing – more human focus that business entity fixation.  Should write that on the wall here, or get a white board for the Nook office.  Hmmm….  Office supply story trip?  Why not!  Could use a break from these walls.  Don’t have the time.  20+ minutes there and back, gives me… yeah, not enough time.  After the meeting, I tell myself.

Another thing about sales – QUIET.  You need quiet from time to time.  And I mean REAL quiet.  No music, no internet, no social media…. REAL. QUIET.  It’s needed.  It heals, renews.  In ways that other methods don’t and never will be able to.  An opportunity to listen to your inner-voices.  And I have to tell myself this – NO WRITING.  Total still, total and true quiet.

Need that white board.  I am going to write that on it, along with #prospectesk to remind me that the blog is the nucleus of all things in my AE life.  Redefining what it means to be an AE?  Maybe… just making it what I want, what I need, what will antagonize me to get where I need be.

Appointments to see houses tomorrow….  Can’t get distracted by that.  Which I am.

Adding to paragraph above, about quiet and sales and what it does for your sales story.  Taking more of this quiet before the meeting.  And I think I was wrong, it did rain.  At least it looks like it did.  2:11pm, thinking I should shave before the meeting.  Good idea.  Break again.

Messaged my AE buddy David, about getting back out to the Field and going to events, killing quota before 9/1/22.  The espresso has me snappy.  Go shave….

Categories
just writing

Studying…. Cold in this seat.

Don’t want to use restroom here.  Is there a vent blowing on me?  Feels like it.  Put self in Paris, walking that street we stayed on, then over that bridge.  By myself.  No one with me, just me walking around with a camera and journal.  Little money in wallet.  Actually, I purposely leave it in room, only bringing a small amount of bills with me.  Watching people talk to each other, point at buildings, look at maps and tour guide pamphlets and books, take pictures with their phones and selfies in front of something.

Now that I’m FREE, single and more of a writer than I’ve ver been, I can.  I will.  Be back in my city – Paris.  Going for runs early, coming back to room and writing a little about what I hear, see feel taste learn….

Barista closes the front door.  So I’m not crazy, the vent that comes on when the door’s open was pushing out air, and I could feel the outside on my skin.  Again, Paris.. when it’s cold, when it rains like it did much of the time I was there.  I can go now.. I can, and will.  I’m FREE.  More of less “happy”, needing nothing from anyone.

Cold again.  Getting tired of the scene, the people.  Not annoyed, just need a drive.  Over Fountaingrove and back to Skyhawk house, shave and shower and ready for day in Sonoma.  Make sure camera’s charged.  Think it is, isn’t it?  Didn’t I charge it the other day in Nook?

10:43, in tasting room.  Tables and chairs outside though I can’t imagine who would want to taste out in this painful cold.  Maybe someone from Minnesota or Nebraska, or Alaska, or Oregon.  Brought snacks so no Maya or Mary’s, or the other Mexican place.  NOTHING.

Categories
just writing

POETRY + MUSIC = 2022

This is what I’m convinced of.  

No joke.

More music, more poetry in my approach to EVERYTHING.

Being an AE is living as a POET.

Speak in verses, stanzas and stances, more expressive sentences.

Journal ready for day, drive up Chalk Hill Road.

Missing my kids, painfully.  That will change in this new year, the time quantity with them spent.  Avowed.  And I am ready to resist if there is ANY resistance.

Unafraid, play the game my way – selected say and stay in certain character forms I warn…

Categories
autre

notes

10:01, grades submitted.  

My last time doing so.  Honestly I almost forgot but going to my browser looking for the WordPress tab reminded me – “Oh SHIT… GRADES!”

Severe weather planned for tomorrow, Dad telling Mom they should leave tomorrow.  Up to ten inches of snow, 40 MPH winds.  Leaving tomorrow…. jealous.  Want to write looking out at snow.  If I get this AWD SUV, that will be.  Tahoe, not sure about a long drive through snow on 97 to Oregon.

10:18, readying for day.  Not letting myself buy too much wine.  Max 2 bottles at each stop, and I don’t see us going to more than 3, 4 would be stretching it and I don’t know if I’m feeling that.  Well, Chris did say a stop at Hawkes for more of that Merlot, so….

Categories
Health/Wellness

2022

1/1

Been waiting for this, staring a new doc on the laptop.  2022.  Really does feel like xmas morning to me.  With chess pieces on their board, the new one I/Santa bought Jack and me, I made three moves, for each side black and white.  Board and pieces on dresser in the room I’m using here at Mountain Hawk.  Remaining me to play, it’s all a game, all of it.

New year, and it’s going too amazing, more than amazing, something for which I have no tag or category, species name.  Another thought – NO PROSPECTING THIS YEAR.  None.  Meet people, get to know their stories, all of them.

Be out in the Field more, go back to my Field Sales Gang roots.  Make more a brand out of me, and before designing any sites for any clients design them for ME – MIKE MADIGAN, the new MM.  OR, Maddog Mike Madigan (MDMM) as people in the Enterprise Tribe call me.

Fist coffee sip of 2022….  Oh my god….  And I’m off.  Failed at my challenge last year of 365,000 words in doc for year.  I won’t this year, mark that.. note it.  Lament it however you wish.  1000 words a day, the religion.  Part of my AE routine… sales and not selling, packing nothing but phone and small journal.  Like laptops, going forward the bigger journals will not be allowed outside house.  That means Comp Books and Paris Pages.

Texted friend… first text of this year—  Actually my firs text was to Meliss.  Second text was to friend, soon checking in with Chris confirming 11:15 arrival time to help me move something in house, then off to my old grounds of Chalk Hill, Roth, Foley Sonoma.  Not ready to visit Lancaster after what happened to Taryn.  Believe me, I’ll get into it later.  I won’t forget, believe me.

Message friend who has to work at her winery today, “GO HAVE THE AMAZING DAY YOU DESERVE.” Think this may be my thesis for 2022.  A thousand words a day, all inward jots in their invaluable intonation.  Watching the New Years celebrations and fireworks on TV last night with Mom rather than being at some party or club or someone’s house gather, sipping Merlot then Malbec then heading down the hall to bed.  Perfect.

This is THE year.  I am not letting myself fail, in any regard even the slightest seemingly most insignificant form.  Certainement pas! (No way!) getting back to French, et je vais m’entraîner… (and I will practice…)

This is my xmas.  More coffee, more chess, more play, more writing, more happiness and health and time with the kids, family, Chris and other more intensely valued friends even though at present he’s the only one I can think of.  Well, other than Jesse, and…..

Approaching first 500 words of ’22.  Everything is a first this morning, everything is launching and inaugural.  Never felt this way about a new year before, EVER.  Not focusing on, just continuing my beat, new ME.

Categories
autre

notes

First post done, texted myself everything I wrote on phone just after 3am.

Gratitude, can’t rid self of that word or idea.  Not trying to.  Explore further…. Thankful for writing this morning, sitting in this Nook – Mom and Dad, Katie my winemaking and just decidedly brilliant sister… my kids, probably more than anything – their health and happiness.  All this opportunity… sales as a topic, being an AE and all the new stories that’s written.

Wish I didn’t have today off, honestly.  Then don’t have it be a day out.  True… keep the story going.  Everything in the Mike Madigan legend, or continuous tale.

Cold outside this morning, driving to Starbucks on 12 for latte and breakfast options, 34, then for some reason in one spot in Skyhawk dropping to 33.  Never hit 32.  Was waiting for it to.

Not selling a thing in 2022.  I won’t.  Only offering ideas and notes, information.. sales not being sales, or selling, not evening marketing or advertising.  All of it – WRITING.

Written.

Each step.  The days on duty, and those off, or “off”.

Categories
Health/Wellness

Receipts, have to enter receipts. Back in a minute. Latte has me fiery.

8:23am, done.  Budget’s next but spending some time with self, thinking about the day and year behind me.  Friend this morning making two large cheese plates, waking early.   Reminding me of gratitude, collection, health and self.

In Nook, planning the build of whoso design.  Then I think it should be a PR or communications firm.  The quota I’m setting for it is lofty…. Distracted, hopping from project to project, scattered but not.  Post video, write more sales notes to #prospectesk.  Thinking maybe I DON’T want to do design.  Needing something atop the AE stream, and not wanting to deal too much with customers or clients 1-on-1.  Have to sort that out, contradictory as it may be.

Posted picture of journal page for day…. Have to write more pen to paper.. not sure why I don’t.  Addicted to keys, the Kerouac influence.  Not problematic but usefully spastic.  8:37am… meeting at 11:30.  Could be determining in several ways.  Don’t want to hex it, but…. I have a feeling.  No more excess deliberation.

Phone, laptop, pen, journal, latte, ME.  Simplicity, consistently.  Probably the only key to 2022, I’m convinced.  Drawing more, on board…. Not after any score.

Categories
wine

2022 starting today. Meeting agent at 10.

Acre.  Still have to do budget… not pressuring self. I do that far too much and the compromising qualities are evident and ravenously redolent.

Designing house in Paris journal – starting with “café”, three to four coffee machines on counter.  “Wine”, another facet to the Save Me Wine House.  Could write about this impatience, and I mean a BOOK.  Several.  Like Lawson or Sedaris, or maybe even Mike Madigan-stayle books.  Me, with a style, imagine that.  My voice…. Focus on and extending from this shift – my own place, less projects, no more adjuncting.  Everything as I want it.

I swear I’m running today.  No, really.  Slept in a bit as I very much needed it after not sleeping that well Tuesday night.  Should have gone to bed earlier, I know I know… not following my own vision is like its own harmful and unnecessary incision.  Can’t think of what I to write, so I look in front of me and see a pen to the left of the receipts stack, obviously telling me use ink more.  MORE NOTES… enough of this.

PUBLISHING, the next note scribbled.  How and what…. EVERYTHING having to do with growth and life, self-education, experience… MUSIC being part of that.  Magic of the Meta, where you are and what you’re doing.  How you arrived there.  I turn this on myself and it’s a long answer but I’m loving the feel of the Nook this morning and what it’s telling me.

Transformed by this, all of it.  More than a shift.  That implies moving from one place or reality or thing to another.  Not this, that’s not what this is.  My story now, what you read and this Mike Madigan is universally and definitely different, renewed, NEW in all his thoughts and types and habits.  The mornings in the Nook, where I end up house or condo-wise.

What I told my friend the other night about dying with wine – selling my bottles and watching vines grow till my final day.  Never phrased it that way and certainly not to a newish friend.  Interesting, maybe teaching myself something, or not.  Last night opening a Valley of the Moon Pinot and Chris messaging me that I drink more Pinot than anyone he knows, or something.  My readers and people around me associate Mike Madigan with wine, so it’s known that vines or my own bottles will be there in the last day of the story.  Hate to think that way, but I need to singularize and simplify, consolidate – arguably my biggest struggle and skirmish or even battle or war with SELF.

Second cup made, may have to order a sparkling water with agent at our little Acre meeting.  Seeing the word TRUTH in journal, knowing mine or one of many the emphasis and demand of Happiness.  Last night sipping the VotM, encased in just that.  Manyfold.  No human voices only visions of me walking out my back deck and seeing rows of Merlot.

Categories
just writing

Tired. Trying to push through it with my 3rd cup

of coffee in total this morning, first since I got back from leads group.  Two calls today.  Will need a nap at some point, and definitely a run.  Hour on tread.

No goddamn houses on market and I’m getting more impatient, annoyed, discouraged.  What can I do, how do I move through the day….  Off tomorrow—  Need to be out of house working.  Should I go to office, maybe?  Or work at Farmers.  No idea how to move, produce.  Maybe that’s a sign or direct message that I should pause.  Only a handful of people at leads meeting this morning, 11 total I think.  And if that’s an indication of activity I could experience for today then it’s going to be preeminently quiet.  So no sense pressuring self to move and produce and get in contracts.

I start to feel more annoyance… I’m irritable.  This probably won’t go on blog.  Probably.

Should go to the office, get more in AE character and Composition.  Bring both laptops.  Put into either note or full sentence every feeling or bit of thinking in fighting the nap trap.  Sipping coffee right now and I feel like I could fall asleep.  Seriously.  Will do what an old friend said he did a couple years ago, “maintain a steady drip throughout the day” or something.  I’ll need it.

Typing faster now.  Coffee must be working.  I’ll more than likely make a double-espresso after this to ensure life and production for day.  Time to self, in the new house wherever it is.  What I’m looking forward to… writing on a Saturday where I’m alone, and writing for hours, kids with their mother.  Just me, my morning.. finishing a book.  Recording a video, editing pictures…. Designing a site.

2022 is about NEW production, like I said in the meeting this morning “perception and reality”.

Prospecting notes…. For #prospectesk’s post.  2022 WILL see a post a day.  Id on’t care what my quota is.  After talking with Ditter last night over a couple glasses of Larson Project GSM, he assuring me my quota will go up.  Fine, I said, “BRING IT.” Just means more creativity, I have to turn this into my own practice, consolidate absolutely everything.  Go to bed earlier, wake earlier.  That simple.  Get on a schedule like my charcuterie friend, without fail.

The tired comes back, wrapping itself around me.  Feel like I’ve lost some of the day but I haven’t.  That’s irrational, at best.  Mornings seeming more knotted as I get old.  Thinking too much, I know.  Finally forced self to record a video this morning.  One of my dominant aims for ’22 is visibility, more media, be in front of the camera more.  A lot more.  Write more about sales and how hilarious it is from the standpoint of being a sales person and how much we think instead of move.  Overthinking and excess deliberation and measurement.  Something I always do and am doing more.  Until I decide to stop.  I’ve decided.

Categories
autre

Yogurt and granola done. Chewing gum.

Student texts me saying they need help with their final paper.  Are they kidding?

Friend telling me I have an eye for photography.  Not sure I agree, in fact I definitely don’t, but if others say I do run with it, right?  Web Design methodology revolving around short copy or prose and two to three images.  Aware of Self and even better I UNDERSTAND Mike Madigan and what he wants in a way I haven’t before.

Thinking about a nap.  Will more than likely take one shortly.  If I didn’t, what would I do….  Drive to HQ, work at Farmers or Acre.  Haven’t been to Acre in a while.

Asshole client after making 4k payment writes a nasty email to all of us and says we should be embarrassed, especially me writing “…especially you Michael.” I laugh. I find this wonderful and lovely on so many levels.  Why?  I’m not letting myself get upset over crazy people, ‘especially’ crazy rude people like you dickhead.  Not letting any of these humans under or through my skin.  That being said I DO think it is indeed time for a nap.  I deserve it.

Lifting eyes up slightly, see 12:05 on laptop clock.