The Last Question
Randy didn’t just come across town to meet me for this coffee. He and his family have just landed in Barcelona… from Arkansas.
While here, they will ride their bicycles on some of Spain’s most beautiful roads. Before donning their lycra and clipping into the pedals, we find a quiet space at the back of a cafe just off of a busy Barcelona boulevard.
Joined by his wife and their adult-aged son, Randy opens up about some of the challenging moments of the past few years. While I am never sure about where a conversation will lead, I feel a lot of depth and meaning around this table. I also feel a lot of love around this table.
Randy acknowledges the positive influence that reading Sunday Morning Joe has had on his life.
As he does, Randy is validating a feeling I’ve had for a while now.
In a moment of self-reflection, it is not easy to imagine the journey and trajectory of Sunday Morning Joe.
This started seven years ago — and just two days following my final day of employment as the Chief Executive Officer of an Olympic and Paralympic sport organization.
From that first post — which was sent to and read by five people — I quickly identified a writing muscle that I wanted to use more. This writing muscle also spotlighted a long-standing communication style operating on auto-pilot mode that I wanted to use much less.
The writing evolved with my own life changes. Sometimes, the writing facilitated the life changes.
I can look back through the various chapters of the series and notice three incremental phases:
- Rules For Living — “I have answers for you!”
- Reflections — “What works for me may be different than what works for you. Choose yours.”
- Questions — “Your answers already exist inside of you. What can you ask to yourself to help bring these forward?”
From creating and publishing to voice development to receiving feedback and stories from readers, every weekly post brought gratification.
These elements of weekly writing and publishing, not to mention a growing readership, make it easy to keep going…
Which makes it more challenging to ask, “Why stop?”
In answering this question, perhaps I should define “stop.”
To stop means to subtract publishing every week about random topics.
To stop means to hold space for the creative process.
To stop means to hold space for rest.
From a stopped position, “the why” that drives movement gains more clarity.
Recently, I was on a call with my own coach. We were speaking about pursuits in this final quarter of the year.
For me, it’s simply about learning, exploring, and creating… and to connect these dots to set the stage for another chapter.
Sunday Morning Joe has shaped — and continues to shape — a beautiful process for doing this. I will hold this space to share what this process yields.
Q. How can I fully apply this process and myself to my future creative projects?
A. I will never know unless I try.
Today is the next small step…
Procedurally speaking, there is nothing you need to do. Of course, you are free to opt out of Sunday Morning Joe the same way you opted into it. But, I will keep the email list intact for possibilities such as:
- An occasional thought piece
- A deeper dive into a topic about which I want to more fully investigate
- Sharing news about an opportunity to connect with me or my work
If I choose to shift gears away from the kind of writing and content that you have come to expect here, I will let you know the best way to follow and participate.
For now, my plan is to honor the stop.
Back at the Barcelona cafe, as I sit with Randy and his family, I imagine the countless responses and replies from and interactions with Sunday Morning Joe readers that have held this space together for the past seven years.
Then the following words are spoken, which encapsulate the true sprit of your messages… and the arc of what transpires here on Sunday mornings.
“Gratitude is now a leading force in my life,” says Randy. “But, when there’s an opportunity to express it in person, I try to make that happen.”
From the reader’s part of this journey — your part of the journey — the transfer of words to positive action is the greatest gift.
When my words meet your smallest momentum-building step forward, we welcome our unique Sunday morning blend of…
challenge… with beauty
discomfort… with curiosity
uncertainty… with new light
As I look across the table from where I write this and out the window at the sunrise you see in the photo at the top of today’s post, please consider a last question:
What can a few minutes of deep reflection on Sunday Morning truly yield?
With gratitude,
-Joe
Connect with Joe:
Joe Jacobi is an Olympic Gold Medalist and Performance Coach who collaborates with leaders & teams by getting them outside the day-to-day rush of life and bringing focus to what truly matters most.
His strategies and concepts help clients, including sales and technology executives, doctors, senior-level bankers, and military leaders, to perform their best without compromising their lives.
Joe continually practices and refines his core principles and strategies via his own life and pursuits at his Pyrenees mountains home beside the 1992 Olympic Canoeing venue in La Seu d’Urgell in the Spanish state of Catalunya — the same canoeing venue where along with his canoeing partner, Scott Strausbaugh, Joe won America’s first-ever Olympic Gold Medal in the sport of Whitewater Canoe Slalom at the 1992 Olympic Games.
