Walk Like A Man (a surreal update if you have the mind…)

“So much has happened to me that I don’t understand…

All I remember is being 5 years old following behind you at the beach

Tracing your footprints in the sand

Tryin’ to walk like a man”

Walk Like A ManBruce Springsteen

At some level, in my trade, losing touch is akin to career malpractice or maybe even career suicide but the realities of life are what they are, so, here I am today simply saying “hello”, hoping you and yours are well…

…sharing briefly where I’ve been hiding out…

…using this recently discovered lyric plagiarizing compulsion to help me along the way

I chose the lyrics of the Springsteen passage at the top quite specifically as his words are an ode to his father and TRULY were a huge help to this note…

My Dad passed 18 months ago, then my mother just 5 months back…

…they both lived into their 90s, and while my brothers and I are far more grateful than words can say for the time we had with them, there exists a completely other level of tangible, surreal emptiness coinciding with a palpable sense of a new reality.

The past three years have found me on countless airplanes rides and some extended trips to the East Coast where my parents resided…along the way physically visiting places of my youth and mentally reminiscing about others. It was fascinating, sometimes kinda cool but certainly distracting from a business perspective and again, highly sobering personally.

The sequencing of events during the past hunk of time left me pretty much unable to focus on much other than my parents…absolutely nowhere near as much focus as I needed to sustain “my search” practice…

I had been spending 25-30% of my professional time on the career development/coaching part of the world so in light of my ever-changing circumstances I decided I myself needed help and hired a coach of my own.

(The way I’ve described this person to family and friends is part coach, part psychiatrist, part sounding board, part consigliere…different parts at different time, however, labels notwithstanding our work together has helped me gain a significant level of clarity about my own reality during this place in time.

I want to work…I need to work (for income as well as for sanity sake)…

…the issue had become simply that the way I’d spent 70%+ of my time during the past decades was being pre-empted in fits and starts by “life” and (for me anyway),  too tough to correctly, virtuously, effectively stay in touch with folks like you – people whose company/conversation I always enjoyed over the years.

“WRITE A BOOK”

“TEACH A COURSE”

Within 2 weeks of my meetings with my coach (aka consigliere, shrink, sounding board etc) up he suggested those two things…

As it turns out I had begun writing a book 7 years ago but gave up 2-3 years later and each year since 2009 had been teaching a career development seminar to  local AmeriCorps/VISTA chapter…an endeavor to which I always looked forward.

It was far from easy  and I said I wanted to work so…I wound up doing both!

It sure didn’t happen as soon as suggested but after fits and starts this grizzled old guy self published a book (using Amazon’s “Createspace” service).

For any number of reasons which I won’t bore you with here the counsel to do so was a terrific idea.

OK…as my grandmother used to say, “enough about me” (probably more than enough huh?)

It would be beyond gratifying to hear back from and about you in any level of detail you’d care to share…

…above all else I’m hoping you and yours are well, I’d enjoy hearing that first-hand.

Stay well!

-Barry

barry@barrykleiman.com