The Morning After: Gary Vaynerchuk’s lessons hit home for me.

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One of my favorite speeches at TECH Cocktail Conference last week was Gary Vaynerchuk, host of Wine Library TV. Other than his eloquent talk on how being a RAT (real, authentic, and transparent) is transforming business, a piece of the Q&A stuck out — and then slapped me in the face the next day.

Someone asked Gary what motivates him and keeps him going. His response surprised me. He said that he’s incredibly grateful for each morning that he wakes up without getting a call in the middle of the night about a family member, friend, or someone he loves having died, and that this fuels his trademark passion and energy.

The very next morning, I received a call at work that one of my favorite XNet customers had recently died. This man had helped me quite a bit a year ago when I bought my first Mac and, was an absolute pleasure to talk to. It shook me, because though I had enjoyed conversing with this man, I hadn’t taken the time to seek him out and build a friendship with him to the degree I had liked. I rationalized that there would be time. Obviously I was wrong.

We make our lives so complicated with everything we’re running after, trying to be, achieve, or experience. I know that I so often forget about these basics and take my loved ones for granted.

Just last night I forced myself away from a fantastic time I was having with the kind of new friends that feel like old friends–to keep my movie date with my mom. Granted, I was two-and-a-half hours late and I felt terrible for that, but at least I made it (it was a Blockbuster nite). We had a wonderful time, just the two of us as my dad was out of town.

I’m glad I kept my date with my mom.

Good People Day ‘08 Tribute: Jason Jacobsohn & Kelly McKiernan

Everyone out there who follows a web-two-point-oh personality has probably heard by now about Gary Vaynerchuk’s “Good People Day 08″ initiative (short video), where he challenges everyone to talk about good people you know. Here are just two of the ones I’d like to highlight:

Jason Jacobsohn of Networking Insight
Many of you in Chicago technology know Jason from his work at the Chicagoland Entrepreneurship Center, KMG Enterprises, and through his blog, Networking Insight. I don’t know Jason very well yet personally, but from the several interactions I’ve had with him I can say he’s a great guy and someone who ‘gets it.’ He’s been gracious and helpful to me each time I’ve come to him with a question, and I believe him to be trustworthy. The more I see come out of Jason, whether it’s good content on his site, how he keeps in touch with people, or his upcoming event, the Great Chicago Networking Extravaganza, the more I see that Jason is a good person well deserving of his success.

Kelly McKiernan of BZPower and LEGO
LEGO fans out there will probably know Kelly from the Bionicle community site BZPower. Kelly has been a mainstay in the LEGO community for years and has used his unique combination of web development, administrative, and interpersonal communication skills to be a driving force behind many community projects. In many cases, Kelly taught me the meaning of “cooler heads will prevail” by living it out in the numerous conference calls, emails, and online discussions we participated in together. From working with him, I know he’s an invaluable asset to any team that must bridge the challenging gap between technology and business interests while navigating political minefields without setting off (m)any mines. ;^)