How much is too much?

During the day I work full time as an engineer. At night and on weekends I am a professional life coach for people looking to figure out what ignites their inner passion. In the spring, I coach my son’s Little League baseball team. This past year I volunteered to be part of my town’s Little League board. So when I recently signed up to volunteer as a broadcaster for my town’s local television station, someone close to me said that I was taking on too much. It got me thinking, how much is too much?

I love sports. I love that my son has a passion around baseball. I dream that he has enough ability to match his passion and take him far. I also temper those dreams with the consideration that he may one day decide he doesn’t love baseball as much as I think he does. And I know enough to enjoy what I have right now, today, which is a seven year old who loves to play. I also love to coach him. And volunteering to be part of the Little League organization in my town will allow me to keep coaching him for the next five years. In this town, you’re likely not to be a coach for long, if you are not part of the board.

Now, my favorite sport has always been football. I played in high school and even did a little bit in college. Every Sunday, since I was a kid I would watch the Sunday game with my father and two older brothers, and I am now finding my son is starting to want to watch too. I have enough experience and knowledge to broadcast a high school football game, which I did a couple of weeks ago. It was a lot of fun. I now have the desire to improve on that performance. I want to do it again.

So far I have given up one night a month for the Little League board meetings and one Friday night to broadcast football under the lights. This is in addition to my engineering job and the extra time my coaching business takes me away. It is time spent away from my wife. Time, the most precious gift we have in our life. But time is worth what you use it for. Useless hours are spent by millions of people every week in front of a television or computer. Time is made much more valuable when you spend it enjoying what is most important to you. My wife and family are the most important to me. So I make that time valuable.

So do I do “too much”? I don’t think so. I spend a lot of my time supporting my family through engineering; I spend a lot of my time supporting my passion through coaching; I spend a little time on the Little League activities and broadcasting that I enjoy; and the rest of the time I spend with my family. I can acknowledge that I give up time that I can enjoy with my wife in order to enjoy something else. In order to make up for “lost time” with her, I make the time that we do have more enjoyable. We had a lunch date the other day. We spent time one night putting the new hardware that she bought on our kitchen cabinets. We cuddle more. She will pour a glass of wine while I sip hot chocolate and we’ll just talk, without distractions. It is because I realize I have less time with her, that I try a to make the time we do have more valuable. I don’t think I am doing too much. I think I am doing just the right amount, leaving myself enough energy to capitalize on the time I have - doing things I love most and doing things with the people I love most.

Time is as valuable as you make it. Spend it wisely.

Enjoy Life.

Coach Randal Suozzo, CPC, ELI-MP

www.coachsuozzo.com

www.facebook.com/PassionDiscoveryCoaching

Photo from media manifesto. Click for link.

In Loving Memory

He was a husband, a father, a brother, an uncle, and a friend. When his widow told her brother that her husband was like a brother to him, he could barely get out the words, “he was so much more than that.”

What makes a person great is not what they have collected throughout their life, nor necessarily what they accomplished, but it is how great they made others feel. He was respected by all, and loved by many. My uncle was a great a person and he will always be remembered as such by those whose lives he touched.

Be great.

Enjoy Life. 

(It won’t last forever.)

Coach Randal Suozzo, CPC, ELI-MP

www.coachsuozzo.com

www.facebook.com/PassionDiscoveryCoaching

Appreciating Greatness

Being a sports fan, I love watching greatness. I have my favorite teams, but I can still applaud when someone on another team does something worth my appreciation. I can appreciate greatness even when it comes from an arch rival, or even when it means my team loses a championship game. If the better team wins, I can tip my cap. An example of this is my appreciation for a great former pitcher of the Boston Red Sox, Pedro Martinez. This past week, I was able to appreciate the end of a great player that has played for my favorite team for the past 18 years. You might have heard of him. His name is Mariano Rivera.

Mariano Rivera will be the last player to ever wear the number 42, retired by all of baseball as a tribute to the late Jackie Robinson. At the age of 43 when most players have long since retired, Rivera was still one of the best, if not the best, at his position. In my mind, Rivera is one of the best players ever to play the game. His dominance and longevity are unlike any other that I have seen.

One more thing that makes me appreciate a great player on any team is knowing that the player is also a great person. Rivera had declared this was going to be his final season before it began. During the year, he went out of his way to meet with fans from every city to which the team traveled. He would just sit in a room and talk to them. He treated everyone the same way, with respect.

I had my six year old son watch Rivera’s last game with me. He loves baseball and I thought he should be able to tell his friends that he saw the final pitch by the absolute best relief pitcher ever to play the game. It was wonderful to see the appreciation of all the fans demonstrated for such a wonderful human being. After collecting a parting gift from every team throughout the year, he received one last gift from the fans at Yankees stadium. They cheered until he left the field after the game.

Thanks for the greatness 42. A great player and a great person.

Enjoy Life.

Coach Randal Suozzo

www.coachsuozzo.com

www.facebook.com/PassionDiscoveryCoaching

picture credit: www.theshadowleague.com

Travel

I used to travel in my previous career. It was nice. Fly to California, drive the coastline, and enjoy the sunshine. Fly to Minnesota, work until dinnertime, eat in a new restaurant, and stay in a nice hotel. See new places. Meet new people. Drive new cars. This was especially nice when I was single. When I was single I didn’t really miss anyone from back home. I got to see and learn about different parts of the country and about different types of people and enjoy the time without a second thought about what was happening at home.

I am married now with kids. I was recently away from my home and family for a couple of nights, staying at a very nice resort in Vermont. It was a new place with nice food and people. It was not the same as it used to be though. Traveling, that is. I found myself enjoying the time to myself, but not to the extent that I remembered it. I was thinking about my wife and two little ones back home, and wondering what I was missing. Thinking about the little laughter, the bedtime stories, and goodnight hugs and kisses.

Then it occurred to me that there was a better way. You can’t have two things at once. So I needed to choose to be present where I was, or think about being somewhere else. While I can enjoy the precious thoughts I have of those back home, they should not lessen the enjoyment of my time away. I decided to enjoy the moment I was having in Vermont. Enjoy it for what it was and not get caught up in what it was not. It’s a much more pleasant way to be.

It may be more difficult for some than it is for others, but practice makes perfect. Just like anything else you want to be good at. I try to continually practice the power of my will. The will to choose to concentrate on the moment at hand over the moment occurring somewhere else. It is so much more enjoyable. You may miss people and think of them, but smile while you do it and then smile about where you are now. There is no moment more precious than the present.

Enjoy Life.

Coach Randal Suozzo, CPC, ELI-MP

www.coachsuozzo.com

www.facebook.com/PassionDiscoveryCoaching

The Holstee Manifesto

In case you haven't seen or read this before, enjoy it now. If you have read it before, then why not refresh your memory? If you prefer the video, click here. 

Enjoy Life.

Coach Randal Suozzo, CPC, ELI-MP

www.coachsuozzo.com

www.facebook.com/PassionDiscoveryCoaching

The Future Holds Limitless Possibility

I love commencement speeches. They inspire me to do more. Why are they given at the end of your college career though? They should be given at orientation for incoming freshman. That is when you have a group of young people who are likely at the stage of greatest uncertainty surrounding their future. Not that they need to know exactly what they want to be doing with their future. That sometimes takes more time and more experiences to determine, but it is the perfect time to stir one’s passion about their future and the limitless possibilities it contains. It is a time to get excited about learning; learning about economics, engineering, political science, or the many other educational degrees college has to offer. And most of all, it is a time to get excited to learn about yourself.

For those of you who share my enjoyment of inspirational speeches, here is an excerpt from one that I like. It can be addressed to anyone from high school seniors to middle aged men and women who can have a hard time figuring out what is right for them and their future. It doesn’t matter how old you are, your future begins today.

“Listen to both your heart and your head. Pursue your passions, but don’t confuse feelings with facts. Almost nothing is as good or as bad as it first appears, and all things change. By all means, set goals and go after your dreams, but know that your ultimate happiness will depend not on your plans but your ability to cope with unexpected turns and unavoidable ups and downs. You may not get what you thought you wanted, but if you’re willing to adapt, you can get something even better.” ~Michael Josephson

Have the courage to listen to your heart and wisdom to know when to listen to your head. And be sure to remember to always enjoy the journey.

Enjoy Life.

Coach Randal Suozzo, CPC, ELI-MP

www.coachsuozzo.com

www.facebook.com/PassionDiscoveryCoaching

photo credit: wwww.whatwillmatter.com

3 Steps Towards Choosing Success

How can we succeed if we have never failed? Mistakes are simply a type of failure. Everybody makes them. Learning from our mistakes allows us the chance to succeed in the future. In fact, if we learn from our mistakes and turn them into experience, which leads towards success...then they truly aren’t mistakes. They are simply an experience.

Lets say you picked the wrong major and feel like wasted your college tuition on an education you won’t do anything with. Well, it certainly must be hard to spend all that time, money and effort on something you don’t want to do anything with anymore. You wouldn’t be the first person to do this though. In fact, some people go their entire lives in a career that does nothing to fulfill them. Other people never get a chance for an education because they need to support their family. So you chose the wrong major? Congratulations for figuring that out! You may have made a mistake with your initial selection, but you succeeded in figuring out one thing that is not right for you. It is up to you to take your experience and do something with it. It is only a mistake if you do nothing to learn from your experiences. Need help taking your mistake and turning it into a success? Try these steps:

No. 1: Admit you made a mistake. This is the most critical step and one that many people have a very hard time with. Why? We are all human. We all have these experiences. Be human. Be yourself. You may find out that it is freeing to be honest with yourself, and the byproduct is that people are attracted to honesty and vulnerability.

No. 2: In very fine detail, explain why it is a mistake. Don’t just say it was a mistake and move on. Why is it a mistake? Is it a mistake because of how it made you feel? Why does it make you feel that way? Or perhaps because of how you made someone else feel? This step helps you learn why you don’t want to make that same mistake again. Once you learn this...

No. 3: What can you do not to repeat the same mistake? You may make several mistakes before you succeed, but please don’t make the same mistakes. Insanity is doing something over and over again expecting a different result. Don’t be insane. Be creative. Come up with a plan. Take your experience and offer yourself different possible solutions to try so that you can eventually succeed.

Mistakes are an important part of our lives. You can do one of two things with them: you can do the easy thing -nothing- and frustrate yourself and/or others by repeating them; or, when you are to, you can follow these steps to make it an experience you learn from and lead you toward success. Be brave. Choose the more difficult way. Make experiences, not mistakes. It will reward you in the end.

Enjoy Life.

Coach Randal Suozzo, CPC, ELI-MP

www.coachsuozzo.com

www.facebook.com/PassionDiscoveryCoaching