A LETTER FROM CHRIS SUAREZ
NO CELL PHONE? NOW WHAT?
Earlier this week a large portion of the country woke up without cell phone service. Some called for the carrier company to get it together. Others gave up hopes of being productive and declared it a beach day. Still others feverishly checked their device every 36 seconds to see if their phone had started working again. The range of reaction was broad, yet consistent. Uncertainty set in. AT&T sent out a formal apology.
As the world - according to social media - seemed to come crashing down, I was scheduled to board a ten hour flight from Seattle to Toyko. I had a list of things I was planning to knock out in my uninterrupted time out of the office. Flights tend to be some of my most productive times to catch up on email, respond to our teams, get some research completed, and get directions sent out to key stakeholders.
What wound up happening was an unplanned break from the internet and contact from the outside world. Soon after we took off I realized the WiFi aboard the plan wasn’t working. This isn’t too uncommon, and on a short regional flight, at times it’s a nice break to catch up on some reading. But as reality set in that I would be disconnected from everyone back on the ground for the next 10 hours, a sense of frustration rose. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spend the first 30 minutes of the flight trying to get the WiFi to work. And then I realized, this is exactly what was needed.
With no way to interact with anyone back at home, I put my laptop away and worked on a framework. I began to disconnect from what I needed to do, would have been doing, or always did and began to connect with what I wanted to do, could be doing, or never did.
I decided to take out my notebook and sketch out what I believe are the 6 pillars of my life:
My career, my relationships, my wealth plan, my personal growth, my health, and my spirituality.
Then with all of the usual noise eliminated, I decided to approach these six areas of my life a little differently. I looked at each of them from two different directions:
What was the best thing happening at the moment in each pillar?
What was the biggest challenge I was experiencing at the moment in each pillar?
Before I allowed myself to answer those two big questions, I began to write down as many questions as I could to follow up.
Why did I believe that was the best thing happening in that part of my life?
What led up to that being so positive?
What would it have to look like or feel like if it were even better?
What if the best was just getting good?
Was this really “my best thing” or was it “someone else’s best thing”?
What could I do to ensure that I didn’t go backwards in areas of my life that were so positive?
Conversely, I began to write out some questions related to the challenges in each pillar.
Why did I view this as a challenge to begin with?
How long has this challenge existed without my doing something about it?
Was the challenge affecting the quality of my life?
Would this challenge matter to me in 6 months, 1 year, 5 years?
Who could help me with this challenge but was unaware I was even experiencing it?
How important was it to me that this challenge was addressed?
As I went back to each question and began to write down some answers, I realized when I ask new questions, I found new answers. At times in our daily routine, amidst the regular voices around us and the distractions immediately available to us, it is hard to look at anything positive or negative in our life in a new way. We approach both sides of that coin in the way we always see them. Heads is heads and tails is tails.
The irony isn’t lost on me that to kick off a trip that was designed to get me out of my everyday life, I was prematurely forced (given the opportunity) to think about each area of my life in a different way. I have never traveled to Asia or immersed myself into the people and culture of that part of the world. I wanted to go to experience it as well as expose my family and daughters to a different way to think and live. Although that experience was set to start when we landed, it actually began when I boarded the plane. I am grateful for the forced thinking time, and reminded how critical it is to step outside of our normal four walls to both find life’s high points and solve our biggest challenges in each area of our life.
Chris Suarez