A good bad day

Rough day.

Awoke at 3:30 AM catch a 6:00 AM flight to San Fransisco via Detroit. My plan was to land in San Fransisco at 10:30 AM and spend the day touring the city before working the next day with a client.

I checked my phone as I popped out of bed. A text message indicated that my flight had been delayed. Then it was delayed again and again.

Long story short: I sat in Bradley International Airport from 7:00 AM until 10:00 AM. Then I flew to Detroit and enjoyed an 8 hour layover before taking off to San Fransisco at 8:00 PM. I landed in San Fransisco at 11:00 PM thanks to the time change, waiting 45 minutes for an Uber, and finally got to bed well after 1:00 AM Pacific time.

4:00 AM Eastern time.

I was awake for nearly 24 hours.

Then I awoke four hours later at 6:00 AM for a day of consulting.

Oh, and the space bar on my laptop stopped working about five minutes after arriving at the airport.

Instead of a glorious day and night in San Fransisco, I spent the majority of it in the Detroit airport and on airplanes.

But relentless positivity saved the day.

1. I saw someone reading “Twenty-one Truths About Love” in Bradley International Airport. My first “in the wild” airport sighting of one of my books. Surprisingly exciting.
2. I was upgraded to first class on both flights for free.
3. I have a backup laptop ready at all times, so thanks to the third delay of my flight, Elysha was able to drive the 22 minutes to the airport and drop it off for me. My regular monthly maintenance of my backup laptop saved me once again.
4. The Detroit airport features live music all day long. Two pianos. A trumpet player. A folk singer with an acoustic guitar.
5. I completed an enormous amount of work.
6. I found myself in the midst of a family feud at one point, with half a dozen people on either side of me shouting at one another in something other than English while their dog took up a position between my feet and barked (also not in English). Not exactly lovely, but interesting.
7. I scheduled a tee time for Sunday.
8. I sent a video to Charlie that featured a moving walkway, a moving tram, and a moving plane all in one shot.
9. Facetime, a technological development that seemed impossible when I was a child, allowed me to see and speak to Elysha and the kids. The kids are very cute. Elysha is very beautiful. Lucky me.
10. About an hour before boarding, I watched a man drop to one knee in the middle of the airport and propose to a woman. She said yes. About two dozen people – myself included – cheered. I channeled my inner Elysha Dicks and offered to takes some photos with their phone.
11. Someone in San Fransisco was willing to pay my speaking fee plus all travel expenses for me to travel 3,000 miles to speak to them about storytelling, communication strategies, and culture building. Lucky me.
12. My Uber driver was the happiest driver I have ever met, telling me everything about the city and laughing constantly.

A long time ago, a teacher told me that “A positive mental attitude is your key to success.” That stuck, and it’s been one of half a dozen mantras that echo in my mind all the time.

It’s true.

Relentless positivity, fueled on this day by perceptive. A lost day of travel is not ideal, but it had some silver linings, too. You just need to look for them.