Scheduling Woes & Conferencing

It’s Monday morning and I’m sure the following may make many of you sick to your stomach so feel free to skip to the next paragraph: I love coming to my office with a smile on my face. I couldn’t be happier with where the business is, where all our product lines are falling, how well things are going and just how much good we’re able to do, from jobs to community (as in community services, not the online cults) empowerment to philanthropic stuff. Having had years of being kicked down and asked “Oh, so what you do is just like ___” I am happy to finally be able to say “___ who? Didn’t they go out of business / fold / sell out?” To be able to come to work and have my choice of meaningful things to work on, instead of working for money, has finally come and I am loving every damn second of it. Yes, even when LA-DC2 is on fire 🙂

Which brings the work addiction – family man equation out of balance. I decided (a while ago) that I wanted my life to have more than just work, and I cut my schedule, I cut my involvement in extracurricular stuff, I have a baby on the way and really a lot of stuff I am truly looking forward to doing. I have effectively pulverized my speaking schedule for 2008 so I do not have the pressure of “Can you blog about this, Can you talk about that, Can we do this, Would you do that” that used to be in my inbox non-stop. So now that there is no expectation, life is easy.

I want to go out and have some fun & make some money, and there are only two conferences that (kind of) fit my schedule. I have been invited to the Microsoft MVP Summit which is two weeks from now, and I would also like to go to WWPC. Here is the problem:

If I go to the Microsoft MVP thing, I may miss the birth of my son if he’s early. If I go to the Microsoft WWPC and leave my lovely wife with a month-old baby for a week, I might come back just in time to watch my own murder at the hands of the aforementioned wife.

The two events are almost mutually exclusive, value-wise, as one is a social/training event and the other is pure and shameless pimping (not that I am otherwise shameful when it comes to pimping, it’s just that people are paying to hear the pitch!)

So what’s the point? Well, the point is that if you’re really down and dirty and trying to build a sustainable business, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and one day you will not be looking for a way to go to a conference to learn how to get business, but will be trying to think of a way to get out of business so you can go out there and have some fun. Stick it out.

As for me, I’m not sure.