“Ladies and Gentlemen: I’m sorry for the delay on this uptown #1 train. One of your fellow passengers had a stroke and he’s not doing well. EMS had to come and take him off the train. I know that’s it’s rush hour and this is a big inconvenience, but your patience is really appreciated. Thank you.” The subway conductor’s voice was loud and direct, yet candid and humane. It crackled, as if we would cry.
The train became silent. An older Italian woman made the sign of the cross and we all nodded in agreement, regardless of our specific religious beliefs.
I thought to myself, “I don’t want to die on my way to work. I don’t want to work a job that is so stressful that it might kill me someday.” That is when I started work on my Bucket List; the list of all of the things I want to do before I die. And I started thinking about my friends and clients who were checking HUGE things off their bucket lists.
People like Holly, who moved from NYC to London and then to Japan to open Chikitea http://www.chikitea.com/ and my college friends Chris and Sara who purchased a 100+ year old house and are painstakingly restoring it, in addition to creating hand-crafted tin holiday figures and toy soldiers at: http://stores.ebay.com/Leddy-and-Slack and Ariel at www.CyberPr.com who had a fierce conversation with me in 2009 about where my life was at and how I probably needed to make some BIG changes (I did!) if I wanted to be happy! She is ALWAYS pushing the envelope in an effort to help her friends and her clients to achieve MORE. And finally my friend and mentor Adrian Miller who told me after attending yet another crappy networking event, that she wanted to start her own network called http://adriansnetwork.com/ that would host networking events that don’t suck. She now has hundreds of members and hosts 8-10 events PER MONTH!
What I noticed over the years of knowing all of these extraordinary people is that they all had ONE important thing in common. They knew what they wanted, they talked about it so that other people understood and they made the dreams on their bucket lists into reality.
What are some of the things on YOUR Bucket List? First step is to Declare it. Next step is to Share it!