My friend Roy Williams has written his Monday Morning Memo blog for as long as I recall and before. It’s a super source for marketing advice and creative sales ideas. It didn’t take me more than a year or two (I’m a slow learner) to figure out the Monday Morning Memo was also a great place for learning how to age in fun and successful ways.
Roy’s message this Monday was simple: If you want to be something, just keep showing up.
I kept thinking about those last four words over my bowl of corn flakes. They stuck with me in the shower. I thought, “Don, you became what you kept showing up to do. If you quit showing up, you didn’t become that.”
For over 40 years, I kept showing up to make sales calls, even in northern Wisconsin snowstorms and when I had painful headaches. I became a salesman.
For over 40 years, I wrote in a journal every day and read books by talented authors. I became a writer.
As a boy, I dreamed of being a famous basketball star. Then I discovered girls and skipped practices. I did not become a basketball player at any level.
So in my senior, retirement years, who do I wish to be? My hunch is, I will become what I keep showing up to do.