Feature Articles

My Wife Kicked Me Out...

Out of the cubicle that is.

The other day as I explained to my wife, Mara, the virtues of living a life that did not involve the cubicle mentality, she stopped me in mid sentence and said, "Buck, you have the worst cubicle mentality of anyone I know. You spend 16 to 18 hours a day at your computer. Why don't you go down to the dock, catch some fish, and provide for your family?"

Now, I never considered my office a cubicle, but I started to think about it. Provide for my family? Go fishing? Are we still cavemen? Didn't my wife think that running three businesses was providing for my family?

As I watched the waves gently bounce a red and white fishing bobber, I began to drift into a thought process contemplating where she was coming from with her statement - provide for your family.

My wife came from a small town called Starbuck in Minnesota. They had one TV channel and I truly believe the town collectively had one horse.  Her father, Jim, was self-employed and ran the local auto body shop. Jim never became a millionaire, but he made a good living. The way he ran his business and his life, and the way he provided for his wife and four daughters, made him one of the richest men I know. My wife must have acquired her father's wisdom because she has the most common sense of anyone I have ever met.

Her passion for life is second to none and her laugh is down right contagious. She most likely was the creator of the oxymoron - frugal plenty. She takes pure joy in discovering a coupon for two dollars off of an item. The quest for riches is not at all important to her but the living of a joyous life, filled with passion, balancing her career as a project manager, and caring for her family is. She has truly discovered her higher calling.

Lessons I Learned About Success and Finding a Higher Calling :

• Seek your professional and personal higher calling - It doesn't matter if you are a DotNetNuke programmer, XMod developer, web master, project manager, or you run an auto body shop in a one horse town. What does matter is that you think about why you were placed on this earth, are you happy with what you are currently doing, and are you being all you could be by living up to the expectations that you have for yourself? Get out of the cubicle mentality! The worst feeling in the world is waking up at 42 years old and still wonder - Did I make the right choices? Did I fulfill the expectations that I had for myself at 20? What will be my legacy?
  
   
•  It has to involve your heart - Whatever you decide to do in your professional life, never lose sight of this simple fact.
  
   
• You have to have your head involved - Sometimes our ambitions and goals are just not obtainable. I know I will never be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist. It is just not in my genetic makeup. I am willing to accept this and, by using my head, discover what I am good at. You need to find something you can do, are passionate about, and have wanted to do for a long time - and do it.
  
   
• Seek a career that utilizes all of your God given gifts and talents
  
   
• I need to make not only a difference in my life but in the lives of others - I love to teach about things I am passionate about. I am passionate about DotNetNuke. I am passionate about XMod. I am passionate about helping others succeed in business. In being allowed the privilege of teaching these subjects, I have found my higher professional calling. What I soon realized is that was only half the equation for success. By being so consumed in my professional life, I was not seeking my higher personal calling of tending to the needs of the people that are important in my life.

Tonight we had fish for dinner with the whole family. Jim had a third helping.

Buck