A Rare Tiger Day

WRITER'S NOTE:
This weekly blog is a fictional account of a 10-week long, so-called, Success Team as they flex their capitalistic muscles and learn to fly again. The story is about an enterprising group of three unemployed professionals and two struggling entrepreneurs all keen on major advancements in their chosen fields. They organize their enterprise as The Tiger Team. This blog will describe how the team was founded and fostered by the people who would come to benefit from it the most. It is about the emotional stakes for those participating, and the occasionally brilliant and ofter humorous ways they cope. Above all else these stories will be about reinvention, full of wonderful characters, provocative endings and non-tragic themes.

A warm and sunny morning catches us by surprise. As we arrive at the attorney's home on the island, he and his housekeeper are frantically moving the meeting outside to his formal garden. We all lend a hand. First thing you know we're toasting our hard work with mimosas (with just a dash of grenadine, we're told, to enhance the presentation). Toasted English muffins, marmalade, and sausages prevent us from getting noticeably tipsy. A nearby hammock did call to me as the meeting progressed, but being a trained professional, I resisted. This comes up a lot in my life.

First item on the agenda is whether or not the team will re-commit to another ten-weeks. Our original agreement, initialed by each member at our second meeting, stated that we would meet for a fixed period of consecutive weekly sessions and then just walk away the better for it. Completions are valuable, fixed targets are good and finite is just fine. Therefore, today is our last time together - unless we plan to get together socially or perhaps volunteering ourselves to a worthy cause as has been suggested. A discussion followed by a show of hands reveals, to my surprise, that we unanimously want to continue on with another ten-weeks meeting schedule.

Of course, the corporate VP will need to be replaced as soon as possible. He's off, with our fond good wishes, to Florida for two-weeks and then on to South America to set up the circus's tour that opens in all the capital cities in just twelve-months. Everyone else on the current Tiger Team is eager to get started anew with high intentions and purpose.

The attorney announces that he's picking up his Yellow Lab puppy in just one week and could not be happier. His other news is that his new law partners are encouraging him to run for public office in Sacramento. He admits he loved the power attained in the past as an elected official. We assure him our votes if he remains humble. Not much chance of that. The publisher and the entrepreneur speak of the value that the success team has provided them in terms of moral support, accountability, coaching, plan structuring and execution. After a one-week break we will be right back at it.

As for me and the Success Team Blog, my commitment was for ten-weeks and I've crossed the finishing line. I've enjoyed writing it and yet I feel quite excited to move on. For the writer as with the lover, the best aphrodisiac is a new area of interested. Oui? What has caught my attention is the challenging subject of mastering the lost art of leisure and pleasure. Statistically we Americans work harder and longer and more stressful hours than anyone in the world today. I do not hide the fact that I question that life style. The new blog will explore hedonism and my point of view that it means, not excess and a slippery downward spiral, but a lifestyle of enlightenment and enjoyment.

I trust that you will all continue to follow my work. Thank you so very much for your time.