Success Traits that Permeate & Resonate

If you study success traits like I do, when you see one, you make careful note, study it, and do what you can to integrate it into your life.

About three weeks ago I was grousing to my wife about how winter was right around the corner and I could feel the rain and gloomy clouds descending on the Willamette Valley. Poor me.

She said, “Jerry, it won’t be here for over a month…you’ve got plenty of time to enjoy the sunshine and the fall weather we usually get…meanwhile, plan some cool project you can work on this winter out in your shop so you’re focused on something other than the weather and a trip to Cabo to cure what ails you.”

Good point. If men would listen to their wives…but that’s another blog post.

That same Sunday afternoon I dropped by my mother-in-law’s house to pick up my two girls and in her garage was her husband Ted. Ted was standing next to a battered old clothes dresser that had seen better days.

I could tell it was on its way out. “Ted, you getting rid of that dresser?”

“Yup. Why, you want it?”

“Yup. Can I load it up now?”

“Sure.”

Just like that, I was in business. That dresser had a place in my “man land.” Not as a storage container for clothes mind you, but something far more important to the modern man…Especially the modern man with three women in the house and a female dog to boot.

What hit me square between the peepers were the words my wife had spoken to me earlier, “…plan some cool project…” You see, that dresser was more than just a dresser. It had a future far more promising than just a glorified clothes basket. Inside that dresser was history and a future as a…BAR back.

Not just any ol’ bar back, but MY bar back. The place behind a cool, old weathered tavern’s bar. The place where bottles stood proud, peanuts were kept and cash registers rang…The spot where, very soon, the northwest’s best microbrews would be stored, in a chilling, ice-cold reefer. It’d become, the centerpiece for Jerry’s “man land.”

So I spent today carefully dismantling my new bar. I removed the drawer faces, some of the frame of my new bar back, and prepped it for Stage 2 of its life.

I’ll post a picture of it sometime. What it looks like isn’t near as important as what it’ll provide for me this winter: a project. An outlet. A place to focus a different type of energy and a place to get “juice” from. Not booze necessarily, although I am sure it’ll host its share, but the kind of juice you get from working on or in something that brings you a certain amount of satisfaction that’s a total and complete distraction from the day-to-day.

The lesson here? Successful people have an outlet – generally it’s one that has no relevance to what they usually occupy their days with. Woodworking and building a 12′x24′ man cave is just what I need this winter to keep me engaged, excited and, out of trouble.

What’s your outlet? Your “other world” where you spend some time.

You should share it with your clients.