At a loss as what to do now.  Made calls, secured some appointments, and looking at clock.  Sipping last cup of coffee.  Grade some papers after this, and where should one do that. One thought is campus, but I’m not in the mood to just rush over there.  Possibly going to a writing spot, somewhere.  Which one.  Feel so much better than I did yesterday.  Tomorrow will be one full of appointments, running early then driving to prospect shortly after that, then to Berkeley to secure an account.

Will work on letters to send prospects, between now till day’s close.  Going to pull back on calling for a bit, unless it’s a response to an email.  Want to accomplish all, and I will, through writing in this AE story.  Need to get here early, tomorrow, if I can.  And remember my badge.  Forgot it today, shamefully.  Where did I leave it… oh shit, on the white cabinet, with the wine glasses.  A bit of irony, I think that’s irony, not having wine last night.

Grading next semester will be incredibly different than this term, if I’m still teaching.  I wrote more when I had the Apple laptop.  Now, I’m typing on these low-quality, not really for writers laptops.  My opinion.  And I need to write quicker, more, and with less thought. Is it dark outside?  Haven’t been out in a bit.  So it could be dark and I wouldn’t know.  I truly feel like it could be dark outside.

Grading takes from writing, I know that now, and have, but not thinking of everything I need grade I cringe.  Write about wine… oh fuck here we go again.  Have some to sip when home tonight, and whatever I grade with.  Don’t they have a Grenache at Whole Foods?  Yeah, they do.  And I remember it being sharp, and loving, jazzy and playful on senses and one that would encourage me to write.  Now, just talking about it, I’m looking forward to grading.  Writing some wise-ass remarks or something cryptic and encouraging in the margins…. Satirizing the institution, while forwarding their efforts in their studies.

Always coming back to wine, always.  And why is that, why did I go to a winery and taste, take notes, and be in wine worker mode on a day off?  “Day off”.  Obviously in quotes since I don’t believe in days “off”.  Wine, the reason and reasoning, where I reason myself and sense of self to be as a writer.  Old pictures in WordPress memory, past, and most of it wine.  From my Roth Winery days and before.  Writing about wine and her colors and bright intrigue and confusing qualities, not meaning to propel and confusing crux but shove you with love to interpret and understand that it’s not the thing in the glass but the reaction and interaction.

Office quiet, and my letters to prospective clients take shape, like I’m writing about wine.  But not at all.  About happiness and no stress, what all business owners want when it comes to their office’s tech.

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11/19/19

Notes as the day goes:

Training to begin in a few, waiting on another attendee.

Training for later cancelled, someone out sick.  Me, feeling alive and fiery and flexible today.  May go for a run, today.  MAY… or, write.  Or do I go somewhere and write.  Going to bed as early as I did last night and going home early to nap is absolutely the connector to the Mike Madigan in the office today.  Third coffee of day, and my way…. A new way.  Eager to show how much I’ve learned in this training, and much I don’t need it but appreciate it as a refreshing seminar or brief.  I can see myself getting dismissed, being told I don’t need it.  And I know I don’t, but still eager for it as review, invitation for ideas exchange.

Where do I …..  Going now.  To training.

Rather than resisting being shoved out of the office, maybe I should be encouraged by it.

Day 9 in Second 100 Pass.  Just let the story carry you.  Don’t try to control, don’t try to hold or steer…. Let the gusts lovingly shove your sails.

11:47.  Training done, and how much I have learned in this AE dimension was wildly and kinetically confirmed.  Lunch in a few, bringing Strong Words pages with me.  Chinese, my solution and resolution.  Not feeling run-ready, not yet.  Luckily my immune system is what it is, and the cold or whatever was yesterday advancing is already scurrying aware scared of my strength.

Thinking products, product focus, after the training on legacy products here at Sonic.  Wondering what my legacy products and services are.  Something to storm over, over lunch.

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Said to myself, corny as it sounds, that this week needs to be a

“game-changer”.  Can’t believe I even used that phrase.  But I did.  Revival of certain practices with my writing, and more practice unto itself.  More of everything.  Arrived at the office a bit anxious, which is the case for most on Mondays but not me.  So I write it out, write it out of me and try to expel it like some hive or swarming circle of gnats.

Hate laptop all charged and cued up, ready for early, early morning writing.  Though, no.  No writing done.  Angered me and I kept saying ‘You need to wake earlier, go to bed earlier’.  Must have said that to myself a dozen or couple dozen times.  So, do I run today or write.  It’s great that I’m running as much as I am now, but it takes from the books, the articles and essays I have in note-form now.  Why leave it there, my not leave anything antithetical to writing or anything that blocks writing from happening.

Train carrying thought, lost.  What do I do with the day, with this AE life and role and story, and me in it.  Goddamn it….. why didn’t I wake earlier.  Didn’t have that much wine last night, so it’s not that.  I start planning for 4am tomorrow morning, now.  Receipts in small stack for reimburse.  Good, can get that off desk.  All I want on this surface are numbers to call, leads to contact and touch.

Found notes written on a Marriot cardstock.  Jotted when I went to that event on the Peninsula, for, what was it….  Structures.  Met a couple people there, didn’t develop much conversation.  What is it with this mood this morning.  Writing self out of it.  Stay busy… stay moving.  Sip this fucking coffee and get to work.  One of the notes—Create, Self-Educate, Elevate.  What I’m doing.  Now.  At the end of this project, I’ll be on a plane, going somewhere in this country (don’t see self getting booked to speak out of country that soon).  To read, speak about writing, how writing is always connected to mental health, to happiness, how you don’t wish occurrences or “things” into existence, but write it so.  What I’m doing now, have to do if I’m to move.

Hear people around me say good morning and “Mornin’….” Tired and in the same stroke and row as I am.  Today… calls.  Just calls and calls and calls.  Appointments.  Meeting at SSU later with wine business professor.  Not sure what I’ll ask her, or how it’ll start.  I’m just there to see where the conversation goes, and not in a surrendering or lazy way, just my own way.

8:49, already want another cup.  Walk out to car in a minute, see if I DID bring running stuff, or if I left it inside house.  Where is it?  Thinking too much.  Think of and see everything as a page, some character saying something. 

If this week is to be a “game-changer”  I have to do everything differently.  Everything.  Starting with the surface of this desk.

Sent expenses and beginning week reports.  Now what.. more coffee and walk to car.  Bite from cereal brought in little baggie.  What to do today, I keep asking myself and hearing the dog bark from the Marketing bullpen, I realize and stop—WORK.  WRITE.  WRITE EVERYTHING.  The morning continues to be odd, ‘cause I’m making it so.  And I laugh, I really do.  David Sedaris in my head and writing like him but not him only me and the new me of this day where I change the game I’m playing and how I play it.  What does that mean…. Laughing, comedy, comedic consideration of all this.

Can’t remember the last time I saw my desktop this clear, clean, unobstructed and concentration uninterrupted.  I’m calling, today.  All day.  Time, losing it and gaining more.  It’s hard to tell, and only ‘cause I’m acknowledging it in this manner and pulse. 

More coffee, please.  Much, much more. What about one of those cold brews.  No, ‘cause then I have to use my debit or that stupid SKU on my keychain.

Feel a cold coming, I swear, and I swear to self I won’t let it have me.  I can’t miss this meeting tonight, and I won’t.  So drink more coffee, and I know, I know… water.  I will.  Already needing a break I get up.

Back from car and with new coffee injection ready, I learn I didn’t bring my Garmin.  Or really I left it at home.  So I’m not running.  Hate running and carrying my fucking phone.  Today… thinking to the sbux on Stony Point, do some writing, other projects and stuff that’s not just stuff but, I don’t know, I’ll figure it out when I get there.  Yes, absolutely decided.  To Starbucks for lunch, thinking a sparkling water and one of those protein packs.  Don’t they call that a “power lunch”?  Maybe that’ll be definitive in this game-changing and augmenting day.

Not yet in a calling mode and mood, but I do know who I’m calling first, and an idea of how many calls I want to make. In the embrace of 60-70.  There has to be some appointments and interested humans in there somewhere.  60-70 calls?  Yeah, there WILL be.  And not cold-calling.  That’s not what I do, at all.

Little later in the morning and the exhaustion lands, wraps around me and I can only think of laying down, a pillow, blanket, quiet.  I’m ignoring those visions and dreams here at my desk, writing my way through and out of it.

Day 8 of the Second Pass at 100.  Needing my own office now and realizing the value to, more than I ever have.  And not value or practicality but just a plain and visible, immediate need.  More coffee, more re-sculpting and re-writing of practice.  Starting to think I might leave early, go home and lay down.  NO. 

DON’T.

11/18/19

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3:55. Day finally starting to calm.

No run, as I had to rush out to a site visit with one of the SE’s.  No lunch today, technically.  Cleaning desk a bit more, so that only leads—business cards, names, contact info, paths to transaction—are visible and within physical reach.  What do I do tonight in class….  Go in blank, no plan, only keep them for an hour.

Nearly settled on leaving early, now.  30 minutes, say.  And go where, thinking either Whole Foods or S&H.  Or, right to campus.  No… somewhere to sit, get through some grading, get these papers out of my stage and scene.

Write up EOD…..  Done.  And, followed up with a prospect in Berkeley.  She’ll sign she says just needs a little time with much of her staff being out, and some family emergencies, and other others. 

Could absolutely use a glass of wine.  Yes, a Pinot, or some light blend, something.  Beer in no way sounds appealing, not now anyway.  Getting out of office, off to collect and not so much prep for class but shift senses and sights, my identity and what I want to say.  Maybe I don’t want to say anything, maybe I want to start animation, vocal and loud discussion in stories and characters, possibilities and decision.

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Back from Novato meeting.  New accrued knowledge on fiber install and voice offerings for prospective clients.  Hour and forty minutes left in fast.  When back from run, I’ll eat something.  Thinking one of the sub-par sandwiches from one of the refrigerators, this building’s or the other.  Or maybe I shouldn’t run today.  Take the day off.  Think Bill, the COO, also a radicalized runner, does on Wednesdays.  If I do, I could do back-to-back 7’s Thursday and Friday, which would put me at 27 for the week.  I think.  OR…. Do 5k today, then 7 and 7, then I’d be at 30 for the week.  Like that better.  I don’t know.  I’m going to go out, but not even close to an hour’s worth.

Decided I’m to stay late tomorrow, and come in for 2 or 3, maybe 4 hours on Saturday, after my visit to Aperture Cellars.  The workload isn’t excessive, I merely need to schedule every hour, all days.  Use Sonic Calendar for everything.

Thinking some water is needed.  No more caffeine.  Cut back on caffeine.  MY GOD, I have too much of it in my system.  Natural energy and beat, not something coaxed by the product of beans, some somehow-justified chemical. 

Seeing, the only thing I should be doing at this desk, is generating revenue and prospecting new business.  Expect my entries from desk to be shorter, curt even, seemingly less interested though the fervor and fire still is very much intact and kept.

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8:32

11/13/19 – Day Three for the second pass at 100.  In a mood this morning.  Coffee helping.  Was going to go to sbux for the usual morning latte, but traffic on Stony Point was more monstrous than I’ve ever seen, so I immediately rules NO, turned around in the street off to right, not sure its name, and headed to HQ.  Meeting in BMK at 10:30, then back to office.  Have two proposals to work on, really 3, then have speakers group at 12:30.  Somehow have to find time to grade.  Should I not run today?  NO, you need to run.  Just don’t do one of the longer routes.  Maybe 2 out and 2 back.  That would bring me to 17 miles for the week, I believe.  Growling inwardly as I didn’t wake early, no shock.

Knowing now, from work, I need go further into my truths, into my narration, I’m now understanding, looking at the clock stare back at me with numbers 8:36 AM.  Much to do in day, but I’m turning off the boat’s motor, and letting natural gusts encourage my travel, production this morning.  Really, I don’t have to move intently till 9.  Have 22 minutes.  5 hours left in fast.  16 hours, this one.  Stopped eating early last night as I was tired, done wit the day, decided to be lazy and watch one of those Paranormal shows, a mistake, rather than take notes.  Just little notes, that’s productivity.  Why didn’t I do that?

Questioning self and wondering what’s at the end of this 100-day dash.  I know, and I see it, I merely need practice and tie-in more discipline.

Grading some small works from 1B class.  Letting go of the stress and mood of the morning.  Set appointment to revisit a site in Petaluma.  Going to come into office on Saturday, finish some contracts and get better arranged and organized at desk.  Now, 4am is not something I wish to do but have to.  There is no other practice for a writer and business blogger like me, to know my Now and free self of moods and nay-saying twits around me that only complain and devote energy to citing what’s missing and wrong with everyone else rather than assemble more sight and beat in their own narrated place.

This project, this new bunching of 100 days where I’m to study each step in my character carousal to his There, to what he sees and needs and dreams, me here thinking that I’m thinking too much, and that if I were to wake at 4am how so much would be solved.  Not feeling too much of yesterday’s 6.3 miles, or the day before’s 7, so I might try for 5+ again.  Not sure, but need time to collect.  Not stress, be in my story and lead my one-man militia to liberation.  Sonic….. if I didn’t have Sonic, if I were stuck in a fucking tasting room still, I don’t know what I’d be writing.  Never mind that.  I’m here, seeing IT.  The IT to it all, all this… what I’m writing, what I’ll be speaking tonight in class.

Cup 1, done.  Time for another.

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Taking a pause in day, in production, to produce this sentence

and those following.  Bringing some Sonic projects home, get ahead of tomorrow, for which I have another initial meeting, then the speakers group in middle of day

May leave office and visit a business, winery I’m quite fond of more or less just down the Road.

6.3 miles later, I’m feeling tired, and getting nervous all the people around me cause and wheeze.  Need to keep running, drinking WATER, and sanitizing and washing hands at every corner I anticipate.  The exhaustion is considerable but not yet compromising.

Getting out of the office and visiting that business I thought of.  What am I expecting, nothing.  That’s one flaw of sales people.  Aside from speaking too much like sales people, they over-rely and over-invest in their expectations.  Looking forward to meeting more people at this business, as I’m already connected there, and seeing where it goes.  (3:42)

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100 Days Second Pass

11/12/19

Day 2 of 100 Days’ Second Pass.  Latte to start day.  Going down to Bel Marin today, later.  Need to reserve car.  Will do in a minute.  More intensity in connectedness, like yesterday and all days before.  Tend to list I wrote up toward end of yesterday’s meeting, with this new project.  On the Road, before Day 100.  Lecturing and speaking wherever I can….  No more promissory writing like this.  Where I am and what I’m doing—Sonc office arranging leads on desk, looking for new names to put in Collective Conversation.  Not saying “funnel”.  Not ‘cause I don’t like the word, I merely see my phrasing as more applicable and appropriate.

This new project, as well fixating on productivity itself.  How I do what I do when I do.  No class today, so that’s lost production.  Or is it.  Only if I allow.  8:17 now, and a whole day to advance in the project.  Not asking for permission, not waiting for any allowance or grant.  Just going.  What we should all do.  I slow my typing speed, where I am at this desk, seeing the latte out of eye’s corner and thinking I’ll be sad when I finish it.  Why.  Some hesitation and pause, lull with it for me, like it’s a lover or lifeline or both right now. 

The latte helps me not think a thing, just to write my hour and current steps and breaths in this office.  Inputting names into the ColleCon, what I’m now calling the Collective Conversation not to be cute or witty or fashionable in combining names as they do with celebrities when they date, but to make it more my own.  And I’m finding that AE life, or any position here at Sonic really, is about wholly owning your own onus.

Distracted by one of my favorite partners here, coming over to see if I saw the batteries he left on my desk for my mouse, the mouse he gifted me.  I thanked him and he as always responds that he has his moments, I respond that he has many and I appreciate them all.  This office and the atmosphere, this is all I ought talk about with prospects, so why do I still overthink prospecting, talking to business owners and decision makers.  No logical warrant, all in my head.

Mouse working now, the one K gave me, and I’m back at the desk typing.  First thing after this, put names in ColleCon.  May even call it CC, to have it be easier and more proprietary.  A business to look up, there’s another, there’s almost too much and not in a negative note and know.  There’s more story ahead of me than I estimated.  AE life is all about Onus, seeing what you see then acquiring through production and narration, self-study.

8:43, relaxing, enjoying what’s left of the latte.  More than I thought.  Why did I see the cup so depleted?  Obvious insight into psychology, psychology I should shift of course.  Was over in other building to get a battery and now I notice I should have got a key, for car I’m going to use today for drive to BMK.  Should probably start prepping for that meeting, another obvious trot.  So…. Shifting motion and focus, frame and form.

Seeing that all of us are AEs.  All, each one of us, our own executive, and each aim, sight, possibility is an already-tenable account.  Thinking is the barrier, just as much as it might be necessary for projects and for colossal movement toward your There.  Create, don’t excessively deliberate.  Don’t stall yourself in circular consideration and evaluation.  As with prospects, enjoy the moment, the creation and conversation.

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Day ONE, of 2nd 100 Project

12pm.

Running me, all put on.  Have some good, what I would call “good” conversations started for day so far.  Holding off on coffee, of course, and wondering where I’m going on run.  Definitely not Rodata.  Done with that trail, for any future I can foresee.  List grows for productivity project.

Oh shit… just realized this is day 1 of the new 100 projects.  Noted that on today’s little piece, with aims for appointments and contact this person, and that person.  Will type up official list of aims for project when back from run.  The aim of the first one, or the dominant objective of being on autopilot has absolutely been achieved and more than streamed.  I’m here, with three contracts coming in last week, and this week picking up on conversations and already qualifying addresses for prospects.

Aim for run, between 5 and 6.3 miles, and definitely not over an hour.  For week, and all weeks 25-30 miles.  One more bathroom break, then out the door.  Saw that outside temp is upper 60s.  Not sure that’s right.  Doesn’t matter.  I need to get out.  Need a run.  Make calls when back.

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