The sun will shine…eventually

I woke up this morning on the 8th floor of the Sandestin Hilton overlooking the gorgeous white beaches of the Florida Panhandle. My plan was to go for an hour run along the water’s edge, just after my morning keynote address.

Sadly, upon pulling back the heavy curtain, the horizon was filled with heavy rain… bummer. Some plans simply don’t shake out. My destiny involved a treadmill.

Financial plans don’t always work out either. The shaky economy has reached just about everybody, even stay-at-home dads like me. I typically get out of the house two or three times a month to spread the Gospel According to Paul. Due to tightened belts and a couple of cancellations on their part, I hadn’t ventured outside the lines since October, so getting out of snowing-yet-again Boston for a 20-hour stay on the white sandy beaches of Destin, FL was a warm welcome.

This morning I addressed the Florida Association of County Clerks at their annual Records Convention. One hundred and twenty five of them, mostly elected officials (they’re referred to as Honorable…who knew?), comprised the audience at 8:30am. In the course of spewing the interesting aspects of my life story, I felt grateful to be back in action. Back in August and September I was getting on a roll and speaking quite often, enjoying the chance to really hone some new snippets in my keynote. Then nearly four months of next to nothing.

I had some legitimate concerns stepping before the crowd, particularly after the AV malfunction that brought two-minute delay to my opening video, setting an awkward stage. But no sooner did I open my mouth that I felt back at home, doing my best to relay to the crowd that while the budget cuts make their job more difficult every day, they have the power - of a personal type - to use setbacks as launching pads toward positive results.

Of course, witnessing my presentation does not by itself make problems go away. The line of folks waiting to buy my book or pick up an audio CD of my keynote enforce the belief that leading with a possitive attitude is great way empower others.

“Making your problems work for you instead of against you” is a core theme of my delivery. And it seems I’m forced to use that every single time I travel. In all seriousness, I’ve been delayed at least an hour or more and/or missed my connection on each of my last dozen trips. Every. Single. Time. I spent three hours yesterday in Charlotte waiting on my connection to NW Florida Airport, aka, Fort Walton Beach Airport. A magnificently splendid time to make those phone calls to prospective clients, which I find little time to while minding Jack and Luke.

Returning home late this afternoon, my flight out of Valparaisa Airport (aka, NW Florida/Fort Walton Beach) was delayed two hours, which gives me time to sit and update this blog - after making a few client calls until business hours expire. This delay also gave me a chance to actually make the flight. I didn’t have much time leaving the conference center to get to the airport; I used my trusty GPS to get me there. It offered me several airport options in the area, one called “Ft Walton Beach Airfield” directly west of Destin. Perfect. (I was quite tired when I made the 30-min drive in late last night and since everything in Florida is flat and monotone, few landmarks make the return trip easily repeated).

I arrived at the destination, nearly 40 minutes later with an hour to go before my flight from the tiny airport - we all know that tiny airports are real easy to get through and so I had plenty of time.

But wait, when I arrived, there was no airport whatsoever, not even the road Mr GPS told me to turn down. I called the airport for clarification and they told me I overshot the turn by about 15 minutes. Oh, boy… Turns out the airport is also known as the Okaloosa Airfield, which indeed the GPS listed - the alias lost on me. I arrived at the airport 20 min before the last flight out town, expecting to head back to the hotel. As we’ve already learned my flight out was delayed and I’m happily sitting here killing time.

So, I’ll say it again, choose to make these things work in your favor. And sometimes you just have to wait a little, excercise a little patience. By the time I finished signing books, the sun was scratching through the clouds and I got my sandy run in after all.