Message received, and understood

What do Arianna Huffington and I have in common?  We both did a face-splat that served as a wake up call that we were doing too much.

As I heard Arianna, when she was in Toronto, describing the scene of her fall, so much of what she was saying was similar to what had happened to me.   Apparently she fell in her office and was found in a pool of blood, so was I, but I was outside in the dark of the night.  She’d had a cut on her head that had to be stitched, I had a cut that was glued together. She broke some cheek bones, so did I.

But it is the wake-up call part that truly struck me.  Now I don’t have a big empire or the resources to support my business, however, when you have an accident or fall, you do have to look at why it happened, and I suspect in both our cases, we were running on empty.

She made some life changes and advocates having a break from technology and some alone time.  My break from technology has, I admit, been more forced upon me as for the past week, I have not had access to the Internet.

Now my email has been working – thank goodness – but no sharing great information on social media which is part of my morning routine.  No posting events or checking member information for our website.  And on a personal level, no checking on potential gifts for the holidays.

Like anything else, it is not until you don’t have something, that you realize how integral a part of your life it is.  I feel I have lost a friend.

On the other hand, my freed-up time has enabled me to do other stuff – like work on our book Enough, planning new programs for 2015 or … wait for it, just reading a book.

It has made me realize that I need to build this time into my life on an ongoing basis, and delegating out the website posting to someone else has been less painful than I thought.  You know what… I am not the only one who can do it.  Now there’s an eye-opening discovery.

I often believe things happen for a reason, we just have to look for the lesson to be learned.  So like Arianna, I am seeing this reprieve from life in the fast lane as a gift - something I need to do more often, especially now winter is here, because I don’t “do” winter.  I tend to hibernate. So finding more work that I can do from home quite suits me.

And what am I choosing to read – Thrive – by Arianna Huffington – after all, we’re now kindred spirits.

Life can change in a second

Clearly I have to stop bragging that I can blog about anything, because no sooner had I told my girlfriends about my disastrous fall, than they said, well there's a blog!

But in some ways, they are right.  This whole incident reminds that our  lives can change on a dime.  I'd had a great evening, with three award- winning entrepreneurs sharing their stories to a group of women business owners.

It had been a wonderful event, with the panelists being real, honest and generous with the information they shared, both to the group and one-on-one with the women in the audience.

I think it would be safe to say that everyone left inspired and motivated to make a success of their business.  I'd had an uneventful drive home, and reached there around 11 pm, walking up the path laden with all my "stuff" from the event.

I probably only had about three steps to take before I was safely through the front door, when boom, I slipped on some wet leaves, propelling myself, and my gear forward.

My head hit the sharp edge of the step.  My glasses - yes those lovely teal ones, snapped and broke, along with three glass vases that we 'd used that night. But the major casualty was my face, with blood just everywhere.

To turn a long, gory story short, I ended up with a doozy of a black eye, two cuts to my head, and a body that was all shook up.  Later the next day, we discovered that I'd broken some small bones in my cheek and we are still waiting to hear if I will need surgery.

So I went from a real high of an event well done to a low where I'm in pain, finding it hard to read or move quickly, all in the space of seconds.

But we all know that stuff like this happens, we just forget or we don't think it will happen to us, and let's be honest, this wasn't life threatening (been there) so in the scheme of things, I will survive and get over it.

However it does serve to remind me that I have been pushing it, cramming 26 hours into the day.  Going here, there and everywhere without much consideration on the toll it was taking on my body.

So I hear you.  Today I have been taking the drugs, dozing and not fretting (well not too much) about the work to be done.  It will get done, but maybe not right away, and I suspect the only one who really cares about the schedule, is me.  And right now I don't.

One bright light in all of this, I am actually ahead of schedule for Halloween - I'm ready and I don't even have to apply any make up:) who am I? Rocky, of course.

PS. Not that it's a competition, but my eye is way more colourful than the one in the photo. Today it is fuscia, yesterday it was purple - two of my favourite colours, just not how I like to wear them :)