Tag: Mental Strength

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HAPPINESS. Imagine that.

5:55, feeling much better.  

Called out for rest of day, took quick nap, just stayed here in loft.  Did a couple chores, laundry and putting away of clothes, cleaning office area downstairs which I still haven’t used as an actual office.  No desk or chair, so…..  Quota on my mind, sales, this slump I’m in.  Change something.. several ideas.  Fit all onto a post-it.

Only topic, now, is the AE story.  Sales.  Building my book of business to a point where I sell it and open the doors to BDX.  Getting on the phone, sending emails, going to events, having cards on me at ALL times.  Think tomorrow night I might go to the bar down the street, the one my friend owns and see if I can’t find a conversation and hand out a card.

Also… the #prospectesk project.  Need to note something EVERY day.  All sales ideas and notes and trials, failures, closes, all occurrences.

Project set for the night.  Something small, easy, easily attainable.  For contacting new businesses tomorrow morning, and I’m starting early.

Just wrote a draft, not in love with it honestly.  I’ll touch it up later.  6:33, want to be in bed by 10.  Go work out, FINLLY, then hit every business you can.  I’m not letting quota win.  NO… this is the story, and when this year is over I’ll be in my office.  BDX…

Trapping all ideas.  All of them.  This island counter, the brick wall behind me and to the left in the loft area… my office downstairs.  Blogging, and a business from it.

Quiet night.  Third at the loft.  Old friend reaches out to me citing my positing energy… again, I’m looking at my character, me as not ME but a reader.  Picking up the book, turning pages.

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Health/Wellness

Then play on the playground and go down the slide with Daddy, then go out to the playground

and chase his big brother around while he fielded fly balls and grounders hit by his friends and a tennis ball.  I couldn’t get enough of it… just watching little Henry, his story not even really having started.  He has everything in front of him.  EVERYTHING.

I feel the same this morning.  Turning on my ‘journal loft’ playlist again as I did last night writing a bit but more so enjoying the night and quiet to self, the Pinot and what was left of the Roth Cab.  My story just now here, arriving, day and page ONE.

I need to note it, ‘cause I want the kids to know I was thinking such – last night, here in the quiet and yesterday walking to the Green which is only a block and a half away, thinking about Melissa, my kids’ mother, my “ex” and I hate calling her that.  Sounds degrading and de-everything-ing  Seriously, I don’t like it and am still not used to it.  Her and I always talked about one day, when we’re rich (and I am NOT, by the way…) having a place on the Green, maybe one of those condos above the candy shop Cravin’s or Kin one of our favorite restaurants…. I don’t know, just though about her, nearly all day yesterday, how happy she’d be with this place, at this counter with me now having coffee as we did so many times in the morning – she with her mocha and oatmeal, the kids with their breakfasts respective and hot chocolates (which Emmie never finishes)…. Don’t know, just needed to note that.  As frustrated as I get, and I’m sure she does too, I’m thinking about her still, from yesterday, poignantly.  It needs to be noted.  I want HER to know…

9:19, time to leave.  Throat still cold-like.  Really hope I’m not coming down with anything… the mortgage payment alone on this place is enough to make me sell internet and telecom.  Starting Monday tonight… leads I need to call on, how to Market and SELL myself as an AE… happiness, stress-free technology… then when I get to a certain point start my own office and building, set of solutions.  The roadmap is more than clear.  Has been for some time but now that I’m here at the Johnson Bar it rattles me, grabbing me by the brain lobes and ordering direction and fruition.

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HAPPINESS. Imagine that.

4/10/22

First night in loft.  Only a bit to self before getting on the Road to Caddis.  My second to last day there.  Too far to drive, and want to singularize.  On the AE story, writing about it.  At my island counter, which I call the Johnson Bar, gathering thoughts and understanding of where I am in the story.. symbolically and tangibly.

Throat a little scratchy.  Hope it’s not a cold, don’t care if it’s covid.  Shocked I haven’t caught it by now, honestly.  Feeling tired though, could probably go back to bed for a bit, but of course won’t, can’t with the tasting room day.  More and more, seeing the value of the immediate – the otherwise dismissible.  ME, as a topic.  About EVERYTHING, about ME.  My sister, my work history, going to Sonoma State and living on campus those two years… the people I swore would be my friends forever, but now are ghosts… memories.  Fond ones yes, but no where visible.

Mind everywhere, seeing this as the only thing left for me to do.  WRITE… all of it.  And with three kids I have more than enough “material”.  Henry yesterday wanting to throw the ball with me…

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HAPPINESS. Imagine that.

8:37, settling. 

Something about the morning is more calm and still, providing than other mornings.  Yes, I senses this before, but not like this.  Difference, contrast, no worry.  Has to be last night in the loft, I guess.  First of many things…. First time coming home to it and it’s just me, first glass of wine, first time washing dishes, first family dinner….  What did Didion say, “Life changes…in the ordinary instant.”  So then nothing is ordinary, I see.  What I’ve been saying, we all hope for some riveting material to fall in our lap as writers and other but what’s right here is more than enough.

Have my JPR today, and not a bit nervous.  I know I’m trying, I know I’m prospecting, I’m not letting any nerves or quota-coded fear into my morning or day ahead or ANY day.  

Just remembered reports… have to get those done before 1:30.  Plenty of time, plenty of morning left, 8:44.  

Leave, go to the office, or a coffee spot.  Leave the Nook, I keep telling myself.  8:53…

Thinking too much, and I mean excessively excessively, about one matter or another.  The solution and solve his to not think but just write and do, or rather write from what you do.  Sitting down to write is working less and less for me.  So I throw myself more molecularly into yesterday and last night.  That counter, the second floor and its loft feel.. this new book.  Happiness and a new definition which I’m absorbing and deciding increasingly by day.

What do I want from today.  Trying to think of ONE reality, or scene… easy.  The kids.  I want them to smile and enjoy their time with me, staying the night here – Jack and Emmie – and waking in morning to get Henry.  Will have them all day tomorrow, nearly can’t believe it.  Will show Henry the loft for the first time, have dinner there tomorrow with all three.

They, THEM… those three little faces, MY kids.. that’s the story.  How different they are each time I see them, when they stay with me.  Could gather several books about each, even Henry in his near-nineteen months a human.

Supposed to be like 92 today.  Saw 92 in the car yesterday.  Allergies attacking me.  Not much I can do.  Not in the mood for any medicine or pill.  Or maybe I am.  I’ll stop at Safeway and get whatever that stuff’s called.  Whatever, I’m not writing about allergy medicine.  Even though I am…

Another cup.  One more then I’ll leave.  Writing freely, badge clicking and clanking against this glass table.  Tucked in…. Life’s work.. LIFE…. Kids, a house, money, bills, people, all of it.  One big equation and I’m terrible at math.  But maybe not this math.  Keep EVERYTHING simple.  Minimalist yes but just singularized and consolidated.  

Me writing at a table, and coffee.  What’d that mask say, the one Mom bought me?  “Drink Coffee, Write Books, BE HAPPY.”

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HAPPINESS. Imagine that.

4:13

Going about it all differently in finding new business.  Completely, and I think I’ll stay in this key, this new Mike Madigan octave.

Stopping by loft a bit ago, quick drop off then lunch now here to Brooks Road coffee spot for a call and some more work.  Finding the humor, the wildest of funny riffs in this. Honestly, I can only laugh.  First night to myself, this coming Saturday.  No internet at that point yet, but not cares from me.  Pretending I’m Keoruac while in Ferlinghetti’s Big Sure cabin.  Just me, quiet, some pre-loaded music if I can even do that.  OH… make a new Spotify playlist.  That’s what I’ll do.

Deciding to exculpate self from this quota pressure and guilt.  It’s not healthy.  And I’m doing everything, actually more, that I’ve always done.  Stop talking about… this is going to kill you.  I swear.

Think wine, or about it.  Write more about wine and wines you drink, taste, like the one last night before heading out.  Where was it from, can’t remember.  Wine always calls me back to the page…. What do Iw ant with wine.  Everything.  BOOKS.  And more and more, more little stories that I have.. what am I doing, what am I waiting for?  Why didn’t I listen to that person however many years ago. Well, I did, but I got distracted.  Didn’t singularize or consolidate.

Well, now I will… tasing self.  One of those “challenges” you read about.  Wine 1, last night, a glass of the Krug at I had a glass of at friend’s house. Napa Valley, something new but not too strange or foreign.  What I was looking for was music, character and a walk.. and I found it with that one glass in the kitchen.

About to start EOD.  Vino…. 

Smiles.

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HAPPINESS. Imagine that.

Back from leads meeting, and tired to the point where I could take a nap.  

Not letting self, force-feeding espresso.  Thinking again yesterday and just now pulling up to house how what we as writers think isn’t something deserving of page, or should be posted to a blog or put in book is precisely what you should be typing or scribbling.  Had this inner-etch step into my meditative clef yesterday when driving to Safeway to get some things for the loft (paper towels, bath tissue, dish and hand soaps).  The imperative being the start-over and re-write principle.  Today, like yesterday, is DAY ONE.

The more conceptions and direction and introspections molded themselves into ad hoc sages.  In the moment exactly, nothing perfunctory but impassioned and intricate in dimension and design.

Changing how I write, how I think, how I sit in this chair and see the loft and this Nook – my life in total, like the sum of all decisions – no matter any outcome or measured result.

Still no sales.  Not letting myself worry.  Have leads to which I need return.  Will send emails in a bit, not just yet as it turned 9 three seconds ago.

The espresso helping, urging me to go quicker.  Shed worry, be THAT writer.  The one who composes and doesn’t care.  Think of the kids and the type of father you want them to have.  Seeing them tomorrow and beside myself excited.

Stomach uneasy from the goddamn breakfast I ate at Epicenter, where the leads meeting’s held each week.  Why did I do that?  Usually refrain, but not this morning.  Kicking self for being so weak, but that’s won’t do anything beneficial or helping get ink.

Into AE mode… send one email, then another, then another.  Something has to lang eventually, right?  This has to turn around.

WHEN.

Impatience is overtaking me, affecting navigation I think.

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HAPPINESS. Imagine that.

Happy but sad to leave the Nook.  Or not sad but saying to myself, “Oh my god it’s happening…”

Time passing and my story changing, developing.  Like my friend says, MANIFESTING.

Kids getting ready for bath and shower, me with remaining coffee.  Remembering the Sedaris quote of nothing happening and he making it seem like there was something occurring… can’t remember words exact but that’s my feeling this morning.

There’s A LOT happening, now.  More than a lot.  Too much, really.  Coffee, newspapers, sun, Windsor, new floors and walls. Brick walls, which I’ve only dreamt about.  Treating that second floor like a NY loft.. maybe my office should be there.

So then what’s downstairs?

New to all this.

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HAPPINESS. Imagine that.

9:11

…..

Wine, one glass red, then bed.  

Not letting self stress over Quota… that is the determinant in the year’s story, at least so far.

Went to event downtown, not much networking to be done, and I hat that term, “networking”… putting together and equation.  For Happiness, and business, health and mental health.

More and more tired as I type.  March 29th, 2022….  The Quota war.  I’d say it started at the beginning of this month, really.  January didn’t county count, and Feb’ was whatever…. Worked later tonight sending emails and messages.

Sales… What the fuck…. Why did I do this to myself. Useless question as everything is sales.  No matter which way Would have gone.  With blogging, with writing, marketing or any sort of PR form.

Dreaming about the kids in business with me, especially Jack.

Leads meeting tomorrow morning.  Thinking of not going, honestly.  For what, the meeting and attending—  Wrong attitude to have, I know.

Stopping writing…. Clocking out.

Then I find a pic I forgot about, from a year ago today, still living in Coffey Park.

All of it happened so fast.  You know, the…..

Time to close night.  Rest.  Not work.  Not think or write, but enjoy QUIET—

Peace, composition… thought of my babies.  No matter what others say, I have my take and interpretation, and impenetrable loyalty to my kids.

Others just talk, and send emails, cite things and fashionably interpret.  Like Mr. Sedaris said, ‘you’ll eventually laugh’.

Well, I’ve landed at eventually.  Walking up that square tube from plane, finally breathing Promised Land air.

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HAPPINESS. Imagine that.

Back from dinner.  Little work and wine, thinking about this week and the end of the week most especially… the story is changing, and now with tangibility.

Writing notes only.  What I should do more often. On character.. this new story, guy in tech and only wants to own a small business.  Bagel and crepe shop in downtown Petaluma.. no more of the rush, sales pressure and prospecting.

Why am I thinking about that now.  Seriously.  Why not just enjoy your night, Mike?  Why is that so hard for you to do?  This is one of the curses of taels like, it has to be.  Glass empty, ‘nother glass then bed.

Missing one human, but whatever… stay focused on the story and the projects, meeting at that winery today, whatever that leads to… OH, forgot I shot a video right after.. should post.

Distracted by tomorrow’s to-do list.  Not so much a list, and not so much to-do-like things and thinking, just planing, or trying.

Nook office… will miss it.  Should set one up in Windsor loft, or condo.  The 2nd floor is a loft, MY loft.  Not sure I want the first floor to be an office.  No idea what my ideas are right now.. 

One more glass of the Caddis Syrah.  What do I move in, or buy.  Just wing it.

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just writing

Took forever for them to make the latte.  Was about to hop

over the counter and make it myself.  Not that I could…. Well, yeah, I could make something for myself… espresso, milk, whip and cinnamon.  How hard is that.

No idea how to work that machine, so never mind.

Listening to a playlist of 80s and 90s tracks on the way over, making me feel older than I am, or just how old I am, my exact age and the one approaching in a couple months.  Nothing I can do but just get fucking OLD.

Guy sits in the sofa seat next to me, on the other side of this small circular table.  WHY.  There are several other seats… why so close to me.

Trying to practice not giving a fuck, on one page and then another.  Sounds sexy, but tougher than it sounds.  Just don’t care… flip the switch, I keep saying to myself.

Duh, if I could…

Quota, how I’ll afford whatever home I find…. The kids as they get older… car maintenance as the Rav gets older…. I see what I’m doing, just stressing myself.  Causing ALL of it.

ALL of it.

11:41

After a criss with email, finally put tables and chairs on parklet.  Forgot my credit card or debit at GoDaddy was an old one.  At first, totally panic.  But now… yeah, back to life.  Relaxing, siping the latte slower than slow ‘cause I’m fired up as it is.  Thievery Corporation, usual tracks on my Sundays….  ZEN.

Chris told me I have a group at 1:45 I believe.  Younger he said.  Great…. See?  I’m a cranky old guy now.

11:46

Gonna walk around, go outside, watch passing cars and people and ridiculous loud obnoxious motorcycles.  My god, what a kook.

12:21

Cold, closed door.  Rain could be anytime now.  Finally… these weather idiots better be right this prediction, had it with their shit.  I’m becoming a bigot toward weather people, and the Weather Channel..  And the weather itself.  I used to love it, but now….  I blame the weather people.  All the way.

Reservation cancelled.  Could not be more overjoyed…. Less people, PLEASE.  Feel bad for my friend Chris, as this is his livelihood, career.  But, he should have known better than to hire a mood writer like me.

Making fun of my moods, moodiness, and anxiety toward quota… what can I do.  NOTHING.  Of course management will outline what I already know, which is what I’ve been doing so that’s comical in itself. What hasn’t been working, yeah keep doing it.

Latte done, one sip of wine and bleh… not in the mood to taste any of this. Not one drop.

Looking for more pictures, for the web design idea…. Short text, memories, realities, observations.  Most of them wine, but not all.  Old pics of the kids, maybe a selfie or two.

Kids, wine, blending trials… life goes by quicker than we want.  So capture EVERYTHING.  Even the apparently boring is bold in opportunity and voice.

Trying to rah-rah self into new mood, not be annoyed with some people and their obvious tactics.