Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live my friend. I am happy to see that you decided to stop by to visit with me. Thank you. It has been about 2 weeks since I wrote and published anything on Second Chance to Live. You see I have been sick. Sinus infection, upper respiratory infection? But this is not the complete story. Let me explain. In October of 2012 I was contacted by an organization in Anchorage, Alaska asking me to consider being a keynote speaker at an upcoming conference in April of 2013. It did not take me long and I told them that I would be honored.
I was thrilled and excited to be asked to be a keynote presenter at a conference, being that this would be my first opportunity to be a keynote speaker at any conference. Actually, this would be the first conference that I had been asked to present at since creating Second Chance to Live on February 6, 2007.
In the months leading up to the conference I spent many hours preparing and tweaking my presentation. I believe that I spent in excess of 70 – 80 hours working on my preparation. I made the final preparations of the presentation the week before I left for Anchorage. The week before I left for Anchorage I started to feel sick. The Tuesday before I left I was able to see my primary care physician and he prescribed some antibiotics. I started taking the antibiotics and finished the final dose of the regimen after boarding the first leg of my fight on April 6th to Anchorage.
The morning of April 6th in anticipation of my trip, I woke up at 3 am and could not get back to sleep. My ride to the airport picked me up at 9:30 am. I got to the airport around 10 am. After going through security, I waited for my flight that was to leave at 11:35 am. The flight left a little after 11:35 am and arrived in Minneapolis around 1 pm Minneapolis time. My flight out to Anchorage was not scheduled to leave until 5:30 pm that afternoon, a 4 1/2 hour layover. For the next 4 1/2 hours I did my best to occupy my time in anticipation of my 5 hour and 15 minute flight to Anchorage.
I arrived in Anchorage at 8:30 pm Anchorage time, 4 time zones removed from North Carolina. My host picked me up from the airport and graciously took me to the Hotel in which I stayed during the conference. I got settled in and slept well, however was woken early the following morning. I was also woken early the next several mornings, and found that I could not get back to sleep. The conference and my opportunity to present — late Tuesday morning — went well. The conference was finished at 5 pm Tuesday afternoon. My flight out of Anchorage left at 9:45 pm Tuesday evening.
During the 5 hour flight back to Minneapolis, MN I was not able to get much rest. We arrived back in Minneapolis at 5:30 am Wednesday morning. I was very fortunate to be able to get an earlier flight back to Charlotte, NC and arrived back in Charlotte around 11 am. I got a cab back to my home and started to decompress. What I realized was that I had not gotten substantive rest since the previous Thursday before I left for Anchorage. Wednesday evening — April 10th — I felt sick and took my temperature – 100.3 Thursday afternoon my Dr. had me begin on another antibiotic regimen.
In Part 2 of this article, I will share the lessons that I learned through my speaking opportunity and trip to Anchorage, Alaska. To read Part 2 of this article, please click on the following link: Part 2
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