Looking Around….Not Back….
Rush has a great lyric in a track titled Time Stands Still from around 1986.
“I’m not looking back but I want to look around me now.”
I’m 51 and I am too old to care if anyone thinks I am “soft” to admit that I cry when I hear that line (hell man I cry listening to a lot of songs…raging bull and crier and proud of it). Amy Mann and Geddy Lee kill it on that song. As I shared with our friends in Vegas at CNI retreat I’m a huge metal fan and that’s probably the least metal of any Rush song, lol. But man, if it’s not one of Neal Peart’s more poetic to listen to at this stage of my life. All parts of my life.
As this is a professional blog I will try to stay in that lane.
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of running into an accidental mentor of mine at the New Mexico Housing Summit in Albuquerque. Her impact on me was massive and lasting, even if it was brief. In total, she may have given me an hour of her time back in 2001. The seed was already there with me. And I had some chops. Trophies even as I had won contracts (as a student still). I credit her for giving me a brick in the foundation of what has become my consulting career.
Running into her struck another lyric quote. “How in the world could you ever know we’d ever meet again?” That’s from the Allman Brothers’ song, Seven Turns. That song is about life’s crossroads and the idea that we have about seven bug turns in our lives, according to some native legends (at least that is what Dicky Betts says about the song).
Where am I going with this?
Well. Just this. Time does stand still a little. And when you least expect, and possibly, when you may need it most (unbeknownst to you) you may very well meet someone important to you again. I am now in my 25th year of real estate and community development. Seems like a short 25 with the benefit of looking around me. The guy I see in the mirror and the way I think are not that far off from the guy I was in 2001 when I had this inkling of who and what I thought I’d really become professionally. I think it stands still just enough so we don’t forget who we were and why we started on the path we did.
Running into my accidental mentor recently, in a town where I made a lot of deals, and a lot of mistakes to that forced to go off in some other directions that actually worked out better in the long run (opened wider paths), at a time where I am really focusing on re-tooling some things for the next 10-25 years does not seem accidental. And, it’s a great reminder that while I have many more years ahead of me, I owe something back to her and many others by helping as many along their path as I can. Whether that was her intent with me so many years ago or not (I doubt it) she just did it anyway because that is who she is and I suspect she was then around the same age I am now. She saw an opportunity for me if I was willing to pursue it. She gave me her thoughts. The rest was up to me. That was true of at least a dozen others I encountered between around 1999 and 2002 that helped put me right here today, whether they know it or not. Some do, and I have thanked them and work to repay them by creating opportunities for others. Some I now know I need to go find them, which, at the very least, is a takeaway from my encounter with her.
Who do you need to go thank? Directly or at least in your heart?
If nothing else, hopefully my encounter can help you with that. And if you are curious about this story in more detail, I am a real open book, so feel free to give me a call. I promise there’s no sales pitch attached.
Last thing. Download those songs and listen to them frequently.