Knowing Now, FREED

Starbucks down the Road from Sonic’s HQ.  I feel more Zen in all molecules and movements than I have in some time.  From being honest with Self.  You have to be, finally… about certain things.  If you deny, or interpret it conveniently, then only more trouble compiles.  I’m not going into specifics, and I don’t have to…. The specifics aren’t the intention of such a note… it’s the pattern, the habit, and practice.  Diving into Zen practice, Zen ideology, and habit, mind, more than just some trendy mention of mindfulness, more than even me being here physically acknowledging certain realities, and behaviors.  Knowing your Now entails so much beyond the Now itself… but what brought you here, to where you are, where you’ve been… why you’re doing what you’re doing, why you’ve done certain things and traveled in particular directions.

This morning, waking around 5:30 and heading here, to this same Starbucks where I’m not sitting and working and thinking about the past couple days….  Here I am, like this, in this sense and mind.  A mind and way I love, where the Zen envelops me and teaches me about the directness of life, directions in one’s story…. There are choices, then there are circumstance possible given from some other being or force, or collective individualized intent.

Not sure what I’m writing, or even why I’m writing, but I know there’s a trajectory I want to avoid.  For all sakes, for all pages.  So, honesty.  This Monday has tested me in certain arenas, then encouraged me in others.  Realizing that there need be a shift with the ship.  One step, I guess…. Sales Meeting in 1 hour, 11 min.  Then class later.  Then home.

One jolt in my world, anxiety… separation anxiety from my kids.  Writing it makes me tear, but I know fortitude is the only electable echo and forward.  Eating carrots with ranch, part of some lunch box that came with a sandwich, and a sparkling water.  Collect, I tell myself.  Wait for more connectedness from the day.. more instruction.  Think about your kids… how you want them to see you, study your actions.  Be deserving of study.

My age, and having these realizations.  What does that mean.  Where am I going.  What more can I do.  Well, I finally know.  So no attaching self to past.  No more in-place holes or ruts, stalls or cells.  I’m here, I’m doing it… re-writing the character.  Writing the entire story.  Me, where I am and what I’m doing… knowing my Now and its entire composition.  Sonic provides more composition, more than a platform but specific composition of a bridge to get me from one reality to another.   What I put into circulation, how I treat my bones, veins, brain.  Staying on the page, the first motion to line dividing sky and sea.  Music.. all of it.  I’ll make it all music, musical, a healing composition.  No matter what happens next.  Unafraid, eager, writing more, clear images and steps… a renewed beat and beauty in my promised truth-speak.

2/3/20

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1/27/20

Lots of writing in journal still to be transferred.  Haven’t had any time with as sped and busy, sent by self I’ve been.  Class tonight, and haven’t seen this section in two weeks as last Monday was MLK.  Going in light, free, only carrying a role sheet and journal.  Tomorrow morning going to coLAB, to write letters, conduct business through communication.. more emails and just quick notes, I’m finding are most drawing and effective.

3:55.  Still sipping coffee.  Could be final cup, I’m thinking.  Yes.  Make it.  Water after this.  Starting to pack, to leave office… friend of mine said to me after telling him today was the last being stationed in office, “Yeah, what the fuck are you doing here?”

Yes, NOTED.  Even if I weren’t canvassing, I could meet someone, talk to someone about Sonic, about myself, about them and their business, or someone they know with a business.  This is more than mere referral marketing… OH, drop off a bottle of vino at tech office in Bennet Valley.  I’ll take one of the bottles from home.  Or…..  Yeah, nothing too elaborate, or pricy.

Taking a break from wine, and yes I’ve said that before but this whole day I’ve been thinking about what I’ll get done tomorrow if I actually do wake at 4am, how much I’ll write, how much I could plan for day, or workout which more than anything I’m eager to do.  Will write and work and plan when back from gym.

Just made another call.  Not so much a cold-call, but a follow-up to when I stopped by an office.

Need to find a place in Berkeley to station self.  Know where I’m going tomorrow in Berkeley, just not sure where the nearest coffee shop is.  Well, wait.. I’ll be around 7th, 6th streets, and there’s that one café… I’m overthinking.  When “canvassing”, don’t canvass.  Go for a walk, I keep telling myself.  Enjoy the town of Berkeley, enjoy the varying business types.

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1/25/20

Today, a day off one could say or see, but me wanting to further push into the AE story… starting with getting up earlier, the god hour of 4am, every day.  Abraham telling me yesterday that he wakes all seven day at 4-something and works out.   Last night, me staying up late, posting some story but mostly relaxing after a long day, or not so much a long one but one of production in many arenas and atmospheres.  Today’s aims, only production… a run at some point after Jack’s baseball tryouts which are in three hours.  Think I’ll launch after that… or, run on treadmill. Yes, the latter for speedwork intentions.  Feel stuck in these types and not sure why.  I’m thinking excessively.  No more writing aims, find that’s a curse.  When you put it there, it’s there to look you back in the face and taunt you, somewhat agitate you that you haven’t done it till now.  Only option is to plainly do, just do what you need do.

Will hit that study/course guide for the certification, for connectivity and telecom work.  Not that I want to be a Sales Engineer, but I want to get as close as I can.  Associating it with winemaking, oddly.  How I know enough to make win, e but not enough to be a professional winemaker.  Some won’t get this analogy or association.  A sensible note or corollary to me nonetheless.  Maybe I do want to be a Sales Engineer, but without the title.  An AE that’s more SE than AE.  Thinking…..

Need to get a run in at some point.  I’m anxious, not having woke when I wanted, not racking 8 or nine miles like I have a couple mornings in the past.  Production, the word dominating the semester for me at the JC, and here I am grappling with it.  A new blog project, ‘a productivity practice’, revolving in my thoughts driving back from San Rafael yesterday, methods of intensifying and amplifying, diversifying production and principle productivity.  One, don’t let anxiety envelop you.  If you can’t do something RIGHT NOW, because you have family to-do’s or some other appointment, push to side in your head knowing it’ll be later appeased.  Second, bed early wake early.  More and more I’m thinking this is the most obvious realization of production.  IF I’d shot from the sheets at 4, I’d have a sizeable run in by now as well as a thousand or so words.  And that’s my third point, no shoulds or woulds… only dids, or doing.

Studying production this morning in my own thinking and with my own narration…. Oh, another staple ideology is to travel light.  Always.  No heavy bag or collection of something under your arm.  Be FREE, and free of things.  Free of clutter and ancillary anything.  Production so often is impeded by what we collect, and in my study there should be less of the study itself and more of a directedness of the productive pulse.  Knowing all of this, in expanding and heightening production, your work accrual, is autodidact.

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Embracing Whim.

Spontaneity, everything in the in-the-moment complexion and consistency of my moments.  Meeting at ten, and until then collecting here at desk, combing through leads, and building conversations.  Today, this morning, right when I woke, I thought of having an amazing day… getting to my office and travels, and seeing what I can do as an AE.  Tell this Sonic story better than anyone in the company.  Certainly write it better, or I hope I can, do, will, am…. 

Essays, stories, building from what I have.  The morning, clear and perfect and beaming.  There’s a music to me that I’ve never heard or felt before.  More than just wanting to work, or be productive, but speak to as many people as I can.  Only 8:19 but I’ve produced more than many would in the first hour or even 1.5 hours of day.  Not bragging and not elevating, just enjoying the ride.  Why not, the ride isn’t forever.  And with the promise to my little boy that one day he and I will have our own office and create together, I have to keep this beat and have it more mobile and hungry, a uniquely ravenous angle and gallimaufry of words and thoughts… no editing, no corrections.  As much as I can and as quick as I’m able, not concerned with sense.

Whim, being and creating in the moment, true FREEwriting is the creative code of my P-O-Z Agency, how I speak the Sonic tongue.  Why not be more free, dash toward, SPRINT for, more liberty, liberation.  Work should always be not just a source of happiness but defining definition of….  Work, why do something you hate?  Why resist spontaneity and chance, writing from where you are and who you are.  MY kids do it all the time and the sense of content about them is something more than just worthy of study but a championing understanding and caress of life.

FREEwriting.  Ideas, more of them….. not trying to inventory them, yet.  Or even at all.  Just touching and working from the ones I can catch, write, do something with and for.

Connected with someone at a business that interests me.  The business is creative, digital, story-oriented….  San plan or method I follow my curiosity.  No blueprint, for now.  Just my hunger, just my assurance and knowledge this will more than merely “work out”.

Wrote letter to lead.  Patience, something I’m still learning.  Need to wake earlier.  This morning up at 6-something which is far too late.  Alarm set, AGAIN, for the god hour of 4am.  When home from class tonight, eat and sleep.  Earlier to bed, earlier to wake.  Just talking to myself at this point but that’s a given in narrative.  Sales… more inward jots.  Do I write about knowing now, work, sales, or nothing, or everything?  Love time to collect.  Know precisely how I’m approaching the day, this AE life…. Maybe not so much spontaneously but with expanded eagerness and love.  Yes, that.  The latter.  To be successful in sales, “SUCCESSFUL”, quotes needed, you ought love your way, your methods, your practice… and before loving it you have to know what it is. MINE, jazz.  Music.  Feel music and beat, riffs in all steps.

Off to walk, offer hellos and good-mornings to partners in other departments.  More than visibility, but connectivity.  Same as the internet, what I “sell”.  Today, assuring a historic and mammoth print in my narration.  Hope the same for anyone reading this note, anyone wanting to know how to be “more productive”.  Start with blind and unplanned movement, love of the movement, then walk toward a destination or block and know it’s only one of hundreds if not thousands if not MORE.

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1/21/20

One of those days that I like.  That starts a bit rough for whatever reason then evens, rights itself, or I right IT.  With intense work and focus, containment and creativity.  Visited an Architecture firm today with one of the Sales Engineers, the one devoted to me I’m just reluctant to call him MY SE.  Anyway, the office was on the backside of a building, and up a small flight.  Building used to be resi’, the Engineer thought.  While up there and looking around, the arrangement and décor of the office was all creative, all visually intoned and inclined, inspired and intentioned.  We met in an equally-sightly conference room off to the side where the owner and his IT or tech guy said they were interested in Sonic’s services.  Couldn’t wait to get back to the office to work up proposal and send, but I had a lunch I had to get to, with an IT consultant.

Again, go-go-GO today.  This is what will get me the office, the travel… everything.  Paid off credit card earlier, and now with quite the thing budget.  Not that thin, just mindful of where pennies and all go.  When do I fit in a run?  Could go now, as lunch has settled.  Don’t want to break this momentum, though.  Go tonight, I tell myself.  When everything is quiet.  If I don’t go tomorrow morning, then I’d have to go in afternoon, after speakers meeting. Maybe that makes more sense.  I’ll figure it out.

Back at desk, writing emails…. Looking for more businesses around the area I today hit.  Have my geographies fixed, which helps.  Simplicity is radiant, both conceptually and with visible possibility, seeing that if I get out there and TRAVEL LIGHT, just say hi, not give any amount of fucks, the office will arrive.

Want a bubbly water.  Thirsty.  More than likely from all the coffee I’ve had, which isn’t a dastardly amount but apparently enough to dry-mouth the mouth.  Different narrative, dodge approaches and words obvious… surprise prospects, and yourself, and the story itself.  So much the day today to me saying, even with how some want their pessimism and low measure of everything around them and in their story to tilt and tarnish my forward.  Not today, not ever.

Business, in business, for business… monitor disposition, not just mood and mode, but the ME that’s seen.  When in the Architecture office this morning, the rooms were shoving me toward them, toward such-rooms and walls of my own.  That I’m on the Road I need be, finally.

Closer to day’s close and I don’t want to leave.  I have my routine, I’m hungry, I want more conversations.  Tomorrow will be on phone more.  Didn’t do much calling, today.  Other than the one visit after the Arch’ office.  Just keep talking, keep putting out story, not just content for the sake of content.

Glass of wine, somewhere… where.  Wherever there could be leads.  Starks?  That happy hour they do?  Parking’s always an issue.  Don’t care.  I’ll give stop by, see what occurs.  The AE in me will NOT turn off.  Going to stop by to see if I can connect with whatever, or not even to connect but contribute to visibility.  This week is about just that.. marketing self and concurrently telling and re-telling MY story.  Get out of this office, every chance I get.  Literally just walking around has value.  IS the loudest of embodiments of visibility.

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