What’s in a name?

Today I sent my book to the publisher to begin the edit process. I am real close to calling myself an author. I can taste it.

This reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine who I have lunch with every two weeks. We are both retired. He asked me, “what do you tell people you do?”

Early in my retirement, I would have answered,  “I’m retired.” But that evokes images of me sitting around the house in my boxers all day. Which isn’t true. I don’t do it all day.

I am a radio show host, blogger and soon to be author. But those are a lot of labels. And what I call myself isn’t that important to me.

What is important to me are the labels I have tossed aside. The labels I used to own but that I have now discarded:

• I’m shy.
• I can’t speak in public.
• I am not mechanically inclined.
• I can’t draw.
• I’m too busy to workout.

These labels acted like excuses. They kept me in a box.

One of my rules states, just because you couldn’t, doesn’t mean you can’t.

• I used to be shy. I worked on it and now I can talk to strangers.
• I used to have stage fright. I worked on it and now I can speak.
• I used to be mechanically inept. I worked on it and now I have some mechanical aptitude
• I used to be unable to draw. I worked on it and now I do some basic sketching.
• I used to be too busy to workout. I made working out a priority and am now getting regular exercise.

The only labels I try to claim now are positive labels, not negative ones.

What do I do? I am Walt 2.0. Enough said!

Walt 2.0