Observe thy self...

What a day, it was a long one, it was a learning one. Big time. Now I need to decompress. No, it wasn't training related, it was work related and when I say work I mean my personal work, my caricature toon website and my Results Internet Marketing business.

The day started a little rocky. I saw something that Poochie did that I was concerned about. He used some text from one part of the website, copied it and used it on another part of the website. Not good as the search engines don't like to see duplicate copy. He also sent me some tweets he wanted to send that sound ed like they were written by a person with english as their second language. Last week he did the same, I had to go through them and correct them and sent them back and then this week he sent me more.

I guess I snapped. Poochie wasn't understanding what I was saying about the duplicate website copy and I was pissed off about the writing of the tweets and there was one other communication area we were having a problem with on the home page copy. I really should get a large sign made that says "NOBODIES PERFECT" and hang in on the wall. I could have been patient and worked through it. Instead I freaked out and got his supervisor and team leader involved.

Of the three, the top boss speaks decent english and seems to understand things on a conceptual level. The net result was that from now one I'm to speak to one of the supervisors and they will review things with Poochie. They told me that Poochie's english is not very strong but his abilities are very good. I asked them why they had me communicate with him directly if that was the case? They said that was a good question. The upside is I'm learning more about how their business works.

It turns out that their brightest and best English speakers work during the Indian day, about 1 am to 10 am in my time zone. I also learnt that each Team Leader has approximately 5 or 6 accounts they supervise. If an account is large enough they are given an exclusive team leader to communicate with directly and they relay the information to the staff.

I now realize why not everyone deals with Indian companies, it can be frustrating. With that said, I started to shake the cage because I'm expecting the same level of quality and service and communication that I'd get from a North American supplier. Yes, I know, I'm dreaming and setting unrealistic expectations. Probably.

The other issue or opportunity is they do not fully explain what they are doing and why they are doing it. They are doing what is required, work is work, they just don't give good phone and educate the client in the process and let them know why they are doing it. This is where I see opportunity, that's my skill.

With all that said, I started to realize that Results Internet Marketing is not going to be a slam dunk. There is going to be some growing pains and communication learning curves along the way. I asked them to send me a list of functions they are doing, they sent it, it's very simple, nothing fancy. I've seem much fancier presentations by others. I was hoping they had an elaborate check-list that I could mirror and use for my clients. Reality is I need to create it and then have them follow my system.

Poochies boss, let's call him Master Poochie, told me that Poochie did the writing himself and didn't give it to his writing team. He is now going to give the writing to the in-house writing teams. I'm curious to see what they come up with. Right now I see two main things that Indian companies are not good at, copy writing and graphic design. At least not the companies I'm dealing with. I'm assuming if I started to look harder, I could find other companies that my be perfect. For now what I've got is Indian good.

These problems started at morning coffee and I think I got off the phone at 1:30 pm exasperated. I went a little overboard and was more emotional than I would have liked to have been. Hell, it's just a damn caricature website. My biggest concern was not going too overboard and being fired as a client, that would throw a wrench in my future plans. Today I used the Faulty Towers management style and Poochie was my Manuel.

There was one highlight to my mid-morning, my Team Canada Triathlon Wear arrived. First thing I tried on was the tri-top, it seemed to fit wrong, like it was on backward. I soon realized that it's designed to be worn with the zipper at the back so you can clearly see the country and name at the front. Whew!!! Then I tried the shorts, felt great. The big test was the cycling jacket, rain jacket and pants. Check, check and check. Everything fit perfect. I also got a pair of socks and visor. I even noticed that when I put on the tri-top that my stomach is flatter and firmer than it's been in a long time. My love handles are getting smaller and smaller. I'm starting to look like a triathlete again.

Now this is where my day went off the rails. I sat down to continue to write the website copy for Results Internet Marketing. For near the next 10 hours straight I sat on the couch and wrote. By about hour 6 I was losing it, getting a little overwhelmed, losing perspective and by hour 8 I was gone, the last two hours were mind swirling. I looked up and it was near 1 am. I didn't even get to the pool, I worked all day and now my mind was mush.

I forced myself to bed and as I laid down I took a mental snapshot of the moment. My mind was racing, I was losing my mental perspective and was becoming manic. I focused all day on work, at least 12 hours and now I was crashing and burning mentally.

In the past, I would have just kept going. That's how I started my business and maintained that lifestyle for at least 10 or 11 years after that, getting fat and unhealthy in the process. With the same determination used to get in shape and train for triathlon I used for business. The difference was that with triathlons your body can only take so much and you have to stop, with work your mind can take a lot more and doesn't force you to stop like your body does. For years in the past I was manic and never want to go back, I never want to lose my perspective for more than one day at a time.

As I was lying in bed and things were spinning I tried to get control of myself and use this as a teachable moment. It was my come to Jesus talk. It kind of went like this. You're too old for this, life is not fun when you get like this, you now realize why training needs to be an important part of your day, you need to train to maintain clarity, if it takes you this long to write website copy you not clear what your doing in your own mind yet, I started the writing style one way and then changed it and lost focus, I lost the forest through the trees, I need to reverse this, I can't work on it again until I have my perspective back, no one is perfect, first thing I need to do tomorrow is hit the pool, I'm not going to get back to doing any real work until I get all my workout in, I need to make workouts my priority and fit in my work in-between to be effective, man I hope I wake up feeling better, my head hurts, at least I didn't major overeat tonight, I wanted ice cream and didn't get it, I did have some Popsicles and a Slurpee, no big deal, tomorrow is a new day, hopefully it doesn't rain, I have a speed bike and run and swim, maybe I'll do weights, my stomach is feeling tighter, I'm starting to decompress, I'm glad I caught this after only one day, 12 hours is more work that I've done on something in a long while, I can't believe how easy it is to lose perspective, I should have went for a bike ride or swim it would have helped, at least I know I now have to.....okay, lets try to forget about it and get to sleep, what can I think about differently to slow my mind from racing, training is important to your mental health, training is important to your mental health, I'm feeling better, deep breath, deep breath, relax, try to sleep, mind stop thinking about work, stop, stop now, deep breath, deep breath, no bodies perfect, deep breath, relax, it's not life or death, relax, deep breath zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

No Training
2617 Calories