Today was my second Spanish class. I arrived at the school a bit early and was waiting in the administration office. I started talking with Miguel, who works in admissions, about living in Barcelona.
As we continued the conversation he let me know he recently watched part of my TEDx talk on mindset and really enjoyed it. How cool is that! He said the school has a coach working with the kids and teachers and she is currently having them read the book Mindset by Carol Dweck and he felt it related to my talk.
As I started to learn more about him, it turns out he used to be a lawyer in Barcelona. I of course wanted to learn more about being a lawyer in Spain, so he promised to introduce me to a few of his friends to grab lunch with them.
As I was leaving his office, I also volunteered to speak to the middle or high school students on how to apply The Fast Forward Mindset to their lives. Disrupting education is part of my 30 year vision and teaching mindset to students is a big part of it. He loved that idea and introduced me via email to the proper people at the school.
A couple hours later I received a response and they wanted to know if I wanted to speak at an upcoming assembly. Wow, that was fast. Of course I will say yes, but this will push me out of my comfort zone. Speaking to students is unlike speaking to entrepreneurs. You need to make sure you are relatable and interactive. Plus this is my kids school so I need to come off cool and not too preachy!
What is an area in your life you can push yourself out of your comfort zone?
Day 2 of Spanish went well. From there, I had a meeting at 11:30 in the outdoor cafe of Turo Park with Joe Jacobi (photo above). He is an olympic gold medalist and a performance coach. He read one of my posts on Linkedin and he currently lives north of Barcelona and asked to meet in person. How cool is that? I of course said yes and we both shared our stories and had a lot in common.
He told me this parable about life that when you are younger it is like being on a kayak in a large river that you can easily navigate and change direction when you want. As you get older, your kayak turns into a boat, then a larger boat, until eventually it feels like you are steering this massive ship in a small river. As result, you can no longer easily stop, navigate, or turn around.
He said, that is how many people feel day to day. They feel they are stuck in one direction and there is no way to change course for the rest of their life.
I told him about this blog and how I was sharing my story in Barcelona. He encouraged me to keep writing. He said, for someone in their early 40’s to change direction of their ship like I did is very rare. He said to pick your family up and live in another country is an amazing experience. He sees it as a way to encourage other people to change the direction of their ships.
After lunch, I headed to the gym for a quick workout before my 3 hour Same Page meeting with Sigalle Barness, Lawline’s COO. I learned about the Same Page meeting format from the book Rocket Fuel and I talk about it in chapter 9 of The Fast Forward Mindset. Suffice to say, it is an important way to make sure the CEO and COO are on you guessed it, on the same page. It was something I lacked with my pervious 3 COOs and I shared those struggles in chapter 4 and 5 of The Fast Forward Mindset.
At 5:30pm, Kel and I left to go to the kids school to attend Middle School night. It is where we got to meet all the kids teachers and understand the curriculum better. I really enjoyed it as the teachers are super passionate at the school. One thing I learned is the kids have Spanish every day for 80 minutes. WOW. Also, Josh & Leila are in the same Level 1 Spanish class with only two other kids. They are going to be rockstars by the end of the year.
Taking advantage of having a babysitter, on Day 30, we went on our first “date night” to a Tapas restaurant near our apartment. It of course was great.
Another full day in Barcelona!