Escapism with Mad Men

Photo Credit www.boston.com

I have a confession to make. This week I watched more television than most people probably do in a month. Also, this week,

• I pitched three different health programs; to a birthing center, a library, oh, and the mayor.
• I was trained to become a local leader with an outstanding organization called The CookBook Project and had to write a proposal for the classes I’ll teach here and elsewhere.
• I put together fifty business cards “treats” for swag bags at a networking event tomorrow.

In between all that I watched about 10 episodes of Mad Men on netflix… in about two days.

I got so hooked into the lives of Betty, Don, Peggy and the rest that I almost couldn’t function in polite society. I caught myself up on four seasons of a show in time to catch the premier of the fifth season on Sunday.

All because what was happening in my real life was paralyzingly frightening.

It’s one thing so say, “I’m studying to be a Health Counselor”. Student I can do.

It’s one thing to set up a company website and blog and do some online counseling. Online stuff I can do.

It’s one thing to even take a few private clients, one on one. One on one I can do.

It’s an entirely different thing to walk out into the world at large with a marketing plan, presentations, pitches and sell your business to the world, face to face, not over a computer screen.

I’ve been in sales before. I’ve had to sell my business and myself as a business person before. But this time is different. This time, I’m so passionate about what I’m doing that I can’t imagine what I’lld do if I screw it up. This time, I have three small people that are not only depending on me to make this work successful, but they are depending on me to not change their worlds too much as I do it. And the worst, I can’t seem to imagine what it will look like if I do it all right. How can I possibly handle that?

This time, it’s for all the marbles and I’m scared out of my mind that I’m just not enough to hack it. I come from a man who was a serial entrepreneur. Maybe I have it in me. But what if I don’t?

So, I escape into the world of screwed up 60s Ad men and beautiful girls with perfect lipstick because it’s more fun where they live-at least for now.