Shiny red balls distract many high performing people, myself included. While playing with a ball can be invigorating, like we see with the children in the photo above, more often it proves to be a distraction. What can you do if you feel yourself being pulled into the next shiny red ball?
Today is the first day that I’ve run for almost three weeks. Early on the morning of May 14, 2013 I ran with a friend on Spanish Banks, near where the photo on the left was taken. As I got in the car, I was a little dizzy. I drove through a parking lot next to the beach, which started to feel like it was undulating underneath me. I drove another block before my whole world felt like giant ocean waves were moving the car and me in dizzying circles. It was all that I could do to safely pull to the curb and park.
In the last couple of weeks, several people have died trying to climb Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. In at least some cases, Sherpas were telling the people to get down off the mountain, but they went ahead to the summit and died on the way down.
I recently returned from a trip to Nepal where I realized a long term dream. I trekked with my wife Karalee and a group of friends through the Himalayan Mountains to the Annapurna Sanctuary where we got to get up before dawn to hike up to Annapurna Base Camp and view the early rising sun paint Annapurna, the tenth tallest mountain in the world, with light. While any fit person can do this trek, it created some personal challenges for me that are among the greatest I’ve ever overcome.
A colleague and I were discussing our career paths the other day. Both of us are musicians. He is a professional and I am a serious amateur. We were talking about the power of music to coordinate individuals and teams.