Whenever anyone asks me “are you busy?”, I always answer “no”, then after the ensuing awkward pause, add: “always active, never busy”. You see, I consciously only work with a select and small number of clients at a time, and also only very rarely work on projects or with deadlines, generally working on a retained basis to coach and be a sounding board to leaders on their journey.
This structure means that I am not “busy”, yet I always keep active, I am someone with a lot of energy in mind and body. This leaves space for learning as well as mentoring and other ways to give (see recent post “the meaning of life is to give your gift away“).
However, I now feel a little too quiet. One or two clients are “on pause”, some mentoring relationships are quieter than usual, and at this time last year I was about to move into my new house, which I then spent the winter modernising, but all is now done. With life also otherwise settled at the moment, the coming winter feels like it will be a little too quiet for me.
So, I’m musing on whether to take on a few more clients, to look for a new area of learning or training, to add some mentoring? Alongside all that, perhaps to be comfortable at this particular moment in life: “Being comfortable with solitude“.
PS today I updated my “NOW” page with these thoughts. I love the idea of a NOW page as a way to share on one’s site what we are focussed on at the moment. As a linked thought, when I meet people, I love to ask them something along the lines of “what’s top of mind for you right now?” as opposed to “what do you do?”, “Are you busy?” etc.