Years ago I remember a book entitled, “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” This best seller left us with a great message. That message for me happened to be that left to my own thoughts, I would most likely take the easy way. Then I realized the easy way isn’t either good, nor is it bad. The easier way is just that the easier way. I remember when I got my wheelchair eleven years ago and ran into my friend Susan Zuckerman at the Galleria. Initially, the look on her face was that of shock and concern for me. However, when I explained how it saved my energy and allowed me to be more mobile, she was relieved. Then I was very clear that the wheelchair was a choice to support my living a full life. By choosing my life with a wheelchair I was not defined by it. I was given the gift of being able to stay active and mobile.
Thanks to my friend Karla from Houston, Texas I became clearer and could truly see how the most powerful people in the world don’t do everything. They do what they are good at and let others do what they do better. I remember Karla asking me what do I do for work? At that particular time, I was managing about $22 million of work as part of a major expansion to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in Houston. As then project manager, I didn’t tie reinforcing steel, pour concrete, rig the lifting of of the many pieces of machinery we set for the new high speed bottle lines, or the new fermented cellars or stock houses. My job was to stay ahead of the field so they would have what they needed to do their jobs and to account to our client, A-B, for the timeliness of our schedule, as well as manage the costs.
This simple, straight forward question and the scratch my head answer became the beginning of a new sense of power. I, from that point forward, became the CEO of my life. I no longer worried about what people would think when I asked for their assistance. From then on into the future, I set my life up to have everything work for me. I no longer did grocery shopping. I would go to the Internet and shop, and have my groceries delivered to my kitchen. I no longer struggled to carry my dirty cloths to the utility room in the apartment complex. I no longer cleaned my apartment. I was lucky to find a school teacher who would come in once a week to clean my apartment and do my laundry. When I went to the cleaners, I asked if they wouldn’t mind picking up the laundry from the car and delivering it back to me on the return trip. To this day, I go to Al’s Wydown Cleaners and they take care of me.
In addition to having all the power to create my life, I also get to know people in a profound way. I get to know everyone by their first names, and I get to express myself each and every time I see them.
The best is my friend Virgil, who works at Kim Kuehner Sportswear. Virgil knows all my sizes, and I call him when I need something. He brings choices to my car, I select what I want, and he takes my credit card for payment.
My life is now much bigger and fulfilled because of a single answer to a powerful question… My job is to live fully and accept the collaboration of others…
