When I wrote at the bottom of my last blog that I would be taking some time off over Xmas I had little idea what that would actually entail. Seven days after writing that Blog about Santa Claus I was enjoying a ride in the country when I crashed my motorcycle into a guard rail (Armco). I don’t remember how the accident happened but I managed to write off the bike and do serious damage to myself.
Today is my first day back at work albeit in part-time mode as I am still receiving treatment for my injuries. As I try to get myself back into gear and get up to speed I realize again what a great family I have and what great staff I have. Thanks guys.
My heartfelt thanks to my family, especially my wife Kay who has carried all the burden of my hospitalization and treatment regime and my daughter Michelle who has taken on many of my duties at work, and my fantastic staff who have kept everything running smoothly and covered for me when required. Having a close call helps one to focus in on what is really important in life and that is without any shadow of doubt, family and friends.
Before the accident I was focussed on technology and spent hours a day researching the latest trends and development tools. Before the accident it was important to me to know which tablet was succeeding and which phone was selling the most and would the Surface RT capture market share, etc., but for now all that technology news seems so unimportant and transient. Basically, most of it is just recycled, repetitive floss.
To be truthful, despite hundreds of technical papers and blogs since my accident nothing in the IT world has really changed; most of the daily news is just noise. Most of the emails are just noise. I have discovered that I can miss five weeks of technical news and emails and not really miss a thing. It literally took me an hour or so this morning to speed read the latest IT news and get up to date. I have missed nothing by being cut off from the news for 5 weeks.
I also realize that I can happily live without ninety-percent of the emails I receive. This is important because I also believe that most of us waste an enormous amount of time reading and replying to emails that are really of no consequence. My New Year’s resolution is now to unsubscribe from most of the technical emails and blogs I subscribe to; they really are a waste of time when viewed in a wider, whole-of-life, what-is-really-important perspective.
The only emails I want to receive at work are from customers, prospective customers and partners. That is, from ‘real’ people about real issues important to them and my business. Everything else I am going to ignore, spam or unsubscribe from to leave more time for real work, not ‘busy’ work.
My advice to you is to do likewise. You don’t need a serious motorcycle crash to learn the valuable lesson I have just learned; I am happily passing on the lesson to you as my gift for the New Year.
My other New Year’s resolution is to quit riding motorcycles and all other dangerous pursuits. To those of you who are still engaging in dangerous disputes my message is that it is the worst kind of selfish behaviour. Please do what I didn’t do and put your family and friends and employees (if you have them) first. Realize how much they depend upon you and realize the impact any accident would have on them.
As my older brother Pat said to me after my accident, “You didn’t have to crash your bike; I could have given you photos of my crashed bike.” He too had a serious motorcycle accident some years ago and I was just too dumb to learn from his experience.
Life is precious, family and friends are precious and none of us know how much time we have so it behoves us to enjoy every single minute of every day and to think about the people that depend upon us before we take those silly risks.
I am lucky because I will fully recover. I am also blessed with a wonderful and supportive family and great employees that stepped up and kept everything running smoothly in my absence. However, I caused the problem through selfish behaviour and this was neatly summed up my five year old granddaughter who made me a get well card addressed to “Silly Grandad”, now isn’t that just so true?