The Clean and Green Club

I’m writing to you on the evening of October 4—just after the end of Rosh HaShana, the Jewish new year. Starting the previous month and going for several weeks until Simchat Torah a few weeks later (October 25, this year), Jews take time for reflection and renewal—peaking at Yom Kippur, which will have been a few days before you receive this. We spend a lot of time in synagogue or find other ways to get right with God and our fellow humans, apologize if necessary, reflect on the things we want to do better, and emanate positive energy about our directions in the year to come. We’ve been doing this a very long time; this year is 5777. We had more than a 1,000-year head start on the Chinese, who are in year 4013.

I personally don’t go to synagogue much. I did the Tashlich ritual twice of casting bread into moving water (traditionally, to represent the sins you want to get rid of—as I do it, the aspirations of what I’d like to do better): once with my kids, who came in for the holidays, and again with friends from our local Jewish community. I do plan to attend Kol Neidre services the evening before Yom Kippur (all Jewish days start the night before) and possibly some part of Yom Kippur itself.

And with all this reflection, I’m going to veer off my usual subjects of green and ethical business success, marketing, and book publishing—and talk a bit about WHY we work.

We work to live; we don’t live to work. Work provides the income that enable us to feed, house, and clothe our selves and our loved ones—and to experience some joys of a fulfilled life that are easier with money. We also work to create a better world, and for the satisfaction of doing something well. And of course, we each have other reasons.

I’ve talked a lot over the years about working—about my joy in using my writing, speaking, and consulting skills to make the world better. Today, I’m going to talk about the choices I’ve made to build in time NOT working—to keep my life in balance and build in time for things that matter.

Let’s start with exercise. My goal is to get 2 hours of it every day, with at least 1/3 outdoors. On non-travel days, I don’t go to bed until I’ve had at least one hour. And I track it—very simply. I write the number of minutes for the day on a paper calendar that I also use to track what books I’ve read, how many learning audios I’ve listened to, and of course, my appointments and to-do list. I find that tracking, even this informally, inspires me to do more. September, for instance, was a particularly good month. I got 3722 total minutes of exercise, or average of 124 minutes per day—above my goal despite two travel days. Three days I only managed between 94-110 minutes, and the 94 was one of my two travel days that month. The other 27 days, I got between 120 and 151 minutes each day.

Reading and learning are other things I make time for. In September, I read seven books (six of them at my exercise bike) and listened to 24 learning audios—more than usual, thanks to a really good telesummit.

Travel, arts, and time with friends and colleagues are also important to me. I got to New York once in September to attend a conference at the UN—and to visit my daughter and her husband. I had scheduled two trips to Boston, one to see my son perform a solo concert and once to meet a client. Both trips were to include visiting my son. But my wife got sick, so we watched his concert on a livestream, from home. Then my client canceled her trip east.

Even skipping my son’s performance, I made it to seven live cultural events last month: four concerts, one play, and two agricultural festivals. And yes, I watched the first presidential debate. I also attended two professional networking functions and scheduled two one-on-one meetings with new colleagues. Add to this an hour or two a day of online networking.

I travel quite a bit. While September had only the one overnight, in the past twelve months I’ve had three major trips of five to 20 days: to Texas, China, and eastern Canada—and at least a dozen shorter ones, to Boston, NYC, Vermont, and Rhode Island. In the next few weeks, I’m visiting family in Denver (and meeting a new business contact) and attending a conference in Atlanta. We’re going to Thailand in January.

Typically, I get about 6 hours of sleep most nights—getting up between 5:40 and 6:30 a.m. and heading to sleep between 11:30 and midnight. Most days, I squeeze in one or two very short naps (30 seconds to ten minutes). Cooking is fun for me, and I usually cook at least three dinners per week for my wife and myself (and, frequently, guests), as does she.

And of course, I spend several hours most weekdays either on direct client projects, admin, and/or on steering my business toward where I’d like it to be (following a shift in emphasis three years ago). But I don’t let the work subsume my reasons for living my life.

How about you? What do you do to regenerate yourself? What are your priorities outside of your work? How much time do you allocate per week to making yourself a better or more complete person? Use the comment field at the bottom to tell us. Maybe it will even lead to connecting with other readers.

Next month, I promise, we’ll be back to a direct focus on business. Next month’s lead article is called Marketing to “Dead” Prospects.

I’m taping postcast interviews with both Ajay Prasad on Founder’s Corner and Jena Rodriguez on the Brave Entrepreneur podcasts. See next issue for playback links.

Tues. 11/8, 6 pm ET: First meeting of Western Massachusetts Global Marketers. This is a new group of entrepreneurs who market nationally or internationally and are based in Western Massachusetts. By invitation only. If you think you should be invited, give me a call at 413-586-2388 (8 a.m. to 10 p.m. US Eastern) and tell me about yourself.

Tues. 11/8: If you’re a US citizen, please VOTE! If you want your vote to support the Paris accord and other action on catastrophic climate change—which for me is a very key issue—consider the Democratic Party position of strong support for reducing carbon output and gradually (too gradually) moving toward a clean, renewable economy vs. the Republican position of denial, hostility, and reversal of the small steps we’ve taken. And consider that even if the climate skeptics are right (and I see plenty of evidence in storms like Katrina, Rita, Irene, Sandy, and Matthew that they are very wrong)—we still get to lower our energy bills, increase our comfort, reduce dependence on foreign powers, and clean up our lungs. Reversing and retrogressing back to fossil and nuclear is stepping away from the future we all want.

Wed. 11/9 (telesummit starts 11/1—don’t wait for my call, this is great stuff): Nicole Holland interviews me on her Building Business Rockstars telesummit. Proud to say I’m in awesome company of rockstars including Marisa Murgatroyd, Dorie Clark, Lou Bortone, and several other very cool people. You’ll want to listen to the whole series. No charge to sign up: https://shelhorowitz.com/go/rockstars/ Plus, you get to see the incredible job Nicole did putting together the visually stunning, highly informative workbook (really a combination brochure and learning tool. Even if you hate listening to teleseminars, you should visit that URL and pick up your copy. A lot of learning there both in the content and in the presentation. The calls run November 1-10.

Wed. 11/16: If you are in Atlanta and want to get together in the late afternoon or evening, I will have some free time. Call me (phone number above) no later than November 10.

Thu.-Sat. 11/17-19: I’ll be attending Suzanne Evans’ and Larry Winget’s Build Your Speaking Biz event in Atlanta—and I have ONE ticket to give away. Visit https://buildyourspeakingbizbootcamp.com/ — and let me know right away if you want to go. First person to respond gets the link for a comp.

Order your copy of Shel’s newest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World

The Surprising Solution: Creating Possibility in a Swift and Severe World by Bruce Piasecki (Sourcebooks, 2009)

About Shel & This Newsletter

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