So I got this e-mail from Pictage’s CEO, Jim Collins.  He’s so awesome about e-mailing the 8,000 photographers registered with Pictage with all sorts of motivational bits and pieces.  He also rocks at being available and I bet if I was a fly on the wall in the Pictage offices, he’d be the CEO to practice “leadership by walking around.”  Okay, it’s techincally “management by walking around,” but I bet he leads those at Pictage by just being available and walking the halls and inspiring and encouraging with each turn he takes.

And speaking of being available, below is a short excerpt from his latest e-mail that really stuck with me. (I even put it in my journal I dug it so much.)  It reminds me of when I tell people to “make it a great day.”  According to Jim (haha), you can’t quite do that:

“On Thanksgiving day this year I caught myself for a moment on a thought. This is it. This is the only Thanksgiving day 2009 I’m going to have in my life. Maybe it’s having just passed one of those Birthday milestones, I just turned 45, and maybe it’s that I’m acutely aware of the speed with which my kids are growing up, but the thought really rocked me. I got to thinking about how I was going to make it special.

I guess the funny thing is that you really can’t make a day special. You can try. You can plan for certain things and you can remember to say or do certain things, but in the end whether or not a day is special is out of your control. The best you can do is make yourself available and see where it goes from there, but making yourself available can make all the difference.”

And so there it is folks… you just have to make yourself available… doing so can make all the difference.  Be open. 

And because posts are always better with a photo, here’s a shot (under TERRIBLE lighting) of Jim and I from the Pictage Partner Conference in New Orleans: