Action Heros - Act!

Someone once said, 'delayed obedience is not obedience'. It was his way of simply saying that when your asked to do something, you should do it now. I think there is a power to living in the now moment of our lives. Many of us are struggling with issues from our past, feelings of failure and embarrassment.

So when Tracey heard that we should start a publishing company, it may have seemed strange to many. But she searched for the domain name for "Olive Tree Publishing" and the dot.com was available. Interesting. Upon telling me about this my immediate thought was, lets get a business license. After all that's what you do when your about to start a new business. But wait a second, we were struggling along with our design firm we had just opened (The Marco Polo Group), why start a second company, we didn't even have enough customers for one, let along two companies, and what did we know about publishing anyhow?

Well, we just did it. Registered the company that day and that's when I remembered a friend in a city not far away that produced books. His little book printing company was doing ok and I thought to myself that perhaps my friend Shy, (East Indian name... I am sure it is short for something I can't pronounce), may know someone who is publishing now so we could talk to him about how to do this.

So we took the 90 minute drive down to Victoria to talk with Shy. At the restaurant over lunch Shy is expressing what he is really needing for his business. Online book layout software. Hmmm, I recall I know a guy who owns a software company. Just a second, I say to Shy, let me call my friend Rob. As I am sitting there at the table on the phone with Rob, (whom I hadn't talked to in a year), he says, Mark - your timing is amazing. I just got off the plane from Portugal and I have signed a deal for North America to promote and distribute this online book layout software. I need a full time graphics and marketing team. How would you and Tracey like to come on board?

And like that, we had a contract and were working full time. One client, but we were working. I would
not have called Rob, unless I had seen Shy. I would not have seen Shy unless we had opened a publishing company. Strange connections.

The next part of the story will be stranger still.

I suppose the lesson to learn here is that even when your down, have an ear to hear what is coming your way. The key to overcoming your circumstances is often standing at the door and knocking. It's the stress of life and the chaos that keeps us from hearing our solution some times.

I'd be interested in hearing if anyone relates to this. Have you been roughed up by life and thought, 'This is bottom', only to find a beautiful way out that you never would have thought possible?