Twenty-twelve 2012 | Here are a few of my favorite things…but, actually, ten

Here we go, a sneak preview of the list of things I’d like to have happen for next year…in no particular order, but definitely in terms of priority. These are things which definitely need to be attacked, stat.

These are the things I really want to have happen…

1. Want to do way more public speaking. This was part of my Three Words – PROJECT, RESOLUTE, LEGACY – for 2011, something I didn’t have a chance to do as much of over 2011, in opposition to my stated goal. I came close a few times (with a couple of standout performances, like here), but it wasn’t to be. Over the next year, I definitely plan to do a lot more speaking and presenting. By the summer, I’d like to have three “motivational-type” speeches under my belt. Industry stuff, too, but the motivational stuff is where I really hit my sweet spot. I love observing the changes I’m inspiring in people as they listen to me.
2. Want to get back into shape: For the record, I am not out of shape. But I am at 80% of my top level, and this has pretty much been the case for most of the year+ I’ve been living back in Fort Lauderdale On Ice (aka “Toronto”). It was an inexorably slow decline…from 100%, to 95, to 90…and onward down the line. The reason I’m able to maintain it at its current level is because I make a point of doing lower-level cardio type exercise and calisthenics 6 times/week, without pushing myself to competitive levels. I want to get back into the gym, back on the weights, back into breaking myself, so to speak, pushing my physical limits, and want to lean out some of the extra pounds I picked up this year. Not chronic, but enough that I notice what I see and don’t like it. I don’t feel like I’m on top of my game, don’t feel as though I’m in the best shape I want to be, and don’t feel as sharp — yes, sharp – as I was in 2010. In general, I also don’t want to age poorly. I want to stay in top shape all the way until I’m well into my 70s and beyond. I want to keep hard-bodied, physically-appealing to my partner, and young. I despise fat. I hate wheezing. I am allergic to laziness, in general, and for the record I have none of the three I’ve listed, but just announcing in advance in case I ever begin getting lazy. All of my university friends’ bodies have gone south a long time ago and the bulk of them are getting into their “middle-age” bodies now. I refuse to follow in their footsteps and I will not get old before my time.
3. Want to get writing my third book: I haven’t written a full-on book since 2006, and while I’d attempted to do something similar at the beginning of 2009, it came out all muddled and I never returned to it. I stranded 300+pp of manuscript on the cutting-room floor and just couldn’t find a way of re-working it back into something readable or making it more palpable to a wider audience so I abandoned it stillborn. It was like I just needed to get that damned screed out on the paper and be done with it. I miss fiction, though, and I’d like to take a stab at it myself. I read about three novels in the past month, and I’m hooked: I don’t read nearly enough of it and there is something grossly wrong with this. I don’t want to keep waiting for the ideal conditions, either, because that’s something I’d mostly whispered to myself all throughout 2011 and was, ultimately, wrong. I even felt the writing mojo at several steps along the journey this past year, realizing full-well I was doing something wrong yet didn’t do anything to change it. That’s a feeling I’m not going to emulate. With respect to the act of writing, I don’t want to repeat those mistakes again.
4. Want to get back into a relationship: 90% of your happiness or misery in life is determined by the person you decide to marry or be with. I haven’t been in a relationship in more than two years and I’ve deeply felt the difference. It has been considerably more physically, psychologically, and emotionally less fulfilling to be outside of one and being on your own basically sucks, and take it from a pro. Not because I need someone, per se, but because I love the concept of partnership, teamwork, and loyalty, and battling the universe on my own all the time – as I’ve been doing for these almost four decades – is not only exhausting, but an ultimately unsustainable model for someone who has made “legacy” one of his 2011 and beyond hallmarks (see point #1 above). I do want to be a dad, too, but I want to be a smart dad. Not a dad by compulsion. Not a dad “by accident.” And not a dad subject to the whims of some antiquated bastardized cultural norm or some societal pressure to conform to a model view of partnership. Yes, I’m being deliberately vague here, but those who know me well will know what I’m referring to. Email me if you want the details. I’ll consider sharing them with you there.
5. Want to make PMD-For-Hire more of a specialty operation: as opposed to the one-stop shop it’s been for the past year and a half. I’ve had fun throughout all of 2011 attempting to handle all of my clients’ needs, but what I’ve seen in the year-and-a-half I’ve been PMDing fulltime is that clients really enjoy the service I provide in one particular area: my marketing savvy. That means: idea-generation, full-court presses, schedules, social media deliverables, punctuality, around-the-clock availability, and overall PR/representation. On the distribution/policy wonk/arithmetic/number crunching/spreadsheet/legal side of the divide: I haven’t been summoned to serve as much so I’ve been thinking of trimming this from my service offering. The more often I’ve offered to get more involved in the “D” side of the “M & D” game, I’ve either been asked to stick to my so-called knitting or entirely rebuffed. However, I won’t cease researching distribution models, even if it’s not something I’ll actively be offering. Like the Veep – I’ll be prepared to take over the Presidency in the event I’m summoned to serve…
6. No more sloppy idiotboy mistakes: I’m already predicting I’ll be losing a few more friends this 2012. There’s going to be a hell of a lot more “no” emerging from my mouth this year so I can safely focus on the “yeses,” scoring more assured, intelligent wins. I’m chalking up my first full year back in Canada (after a tremendously long time away in Europe) to experimentation. It was more a time to acclimatize myself to the norms of a society I’d been absent from for a handful of years. I made a few key strategic blunders – more on the professional side than the personal – but blunders nevertheless. I suffered a rotten spring, of truly set-back proportions. Epically rotten, in fact, so much so that I’m really not in the mood to revisit it here. Yet the fact remains that those mistakes will not be made again. I warn everyone in advance that some people will not satisfied with the “new ADM,” which is the reason it’s appearing here. Sorry.
7. Being in more control of my social media behavior: I found towards the final quarter of 2011 that social media was turning into more of an afternoon distraction than a critical business tool. I don’t want to begin to attribute a sum to it, though I’d say I can probably recover a stray hour for other activities were I not so engaged with wrangling down the discussions on Facebook or being that tethered to the public stream on Twitter. At the end of the day, sure, there are things I can learn by being a part of the Twitter and Facebook universes, but am I really missed much by not being there as often? Like, what’s the value-add? Do I need to be this ubiquitous? Seriously. Being the stickler for punctuality and time that I am, I don’t like wasting that latter resource given how I keenly know that every moment we have is a gift. Every moment we have to effect positive change is a privilege and it’s not to be wasted ever. Chucking it all away on silly social media loops is sinful, in fact. For the anti-religious among my readership, I don’t think my usage of that term diminishes the power of the message.
8. Doing even more reading than I’ve done: True, I’ve for the most part succeeded in reading a book per week in 2011, yet I don’t think it was enough. I love blogs and blogging, but I’m also aware the real learning – the real down-home genuine conveying of long-form ideas and concepts – comes only through books, not more “schnacky” blogs. Cogent ideas presented in long form, in other words. My 2012 goal, ramping up on last year’s, even if it’s not my personal best: to read a couple of books per week like in years past: 2008, 2009, 2010. I haven’t read nearly as much since moving back to Canada, which only proves to me one thing: we may have more stuff to choose from on this side of the ocean. We may have so-called “affluence.” The opportunities may apparently be more lucrative. But in the chase for more lucre, we also waste a tremendous amount of our time on senseless agendas. Time needed to rest and recover from the hard slog we devote to our jobs and lives because we’re bodily broken. Time wasted due to commuting over the gargantuan distances of North America’s sprawling cities, wasted in useless vehicular traffic. Time wasted worrying about where we’re not instead of appreciating where we are. Time wasted not being totally present-minded. You’re probably reading this and thinking I’ve totally cracked, but there’s truth in these words. How many of you can merely step back and enjoy where you’re at, right at this very instant? It took me a year of living dangerously at this ridiculous pace – and I’ve only been delving into it mildly, mind you, not even fully ensconced in it, and this the reaction I have. In short, there’s kind of something wrong with this model. I don’t have any prescriptions on how to fix it, but merely observing/comparing/contrasting it to other models I’ve lived. This can’t be the top of the line. It just can’t be. There are different (better?) ways to live…
9. Taking more “mini-holidays:” I noticed when I’d stepped away from the tech for 72-hour periods, I came back much more refreshed, creative, and ready to attack my stack. Too many 6 day/week slogs, with a workweek commencing Sundays and in which I basically take all of Saturday off, have likely placed a strain on my overall level of life satisfaction, not to mention my personal life. I also think it’s made me a bit edgy at various junctures throughout 2011. Come what may, I’ll be taking more “mini-holidays” to various places this 2012. When I was living in Europe, this was much easier due to the proximity of the various countries.
10. Europe will be factoring into 2012 to a much greater degree than 2011: I only had a chance to hit Europe once in 2011, more of a business trip. Of that 5-day jaunt, I took out only two days for pleasure. While it was compressed fun and stellar as always (you know you are reading this!), if I’m going to be pulling more of those whirlwind-type trips then I need to string more of them together, more often. Also, I’ve missed being in real multicultural multilingual environments, not flavorful gussied-up ones like here in Toronto, where everyone remains in their respective fiefdoms, only interacting with each other throughout the course of a business day. Perhaps this is just me living a sheltered Toronto existence, I’m not sure. But as concerns Europe, I don’t necessarily have to be there on a full-time basis, but it’s exceedingly more exciting than living full-time in the English-speaking West, which is – for the most part – a language/cultural graveyard. All people do in North America is work and chase money. Artists are for the most part ridiculed if not outright shunned. The busier you are, the more worth you have. No one takes the time to think, breathe, or even create innovative stuff. There are few visionaries in North America, which is why they’re likely worshipped like Hindu demigods (aka Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, etc.). Or perhaps I’m surveying the artistic landscape through a European lens? In any event, all of these indicators – at least to me – point to the fact that I need to spend considerable more time “at large in the world.”

While these aren’t all the things I want for 2012, they definitely rank amongst my most important aspirations.

Thanks for being patient and for reading this.

Adam Daniel Mezei, PMD | Producer of Marketing and Distribution
http://pmdforhire.com
Marketing and Distribution Services for Indie Films and Documentaries

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