The Birthday Bucket List
Today is my birthday. Turning 41 is almost worse than turning 40: now it feels like I’m fully committed to the whole “in your 40’s” thing. Oh well – beats the alternative.
Birthdays are a good time for self reflection. Are you happy with your lot in life? What’s left to accomplish?
I’m a pretty fortunate fellow. Happy marriage, good kids, good health, a career I enjoy, lotsa toys. (Speaking of toys, my wife’s gag gift today? A food dehydrator, so I can make my own beef jerky. Joke’s on her, though: I’m gonna use it!)
With all those blessings, all that’s left on my to-do list are Hoped-For Accomplishments.
I’d like to see SHIFT achieve at least $20M in revenues. Besides being a nice round number, it’s the kind of revenue stream that will allow us to further invest in our rising stars. New services, new career paths, etc.
I’d like to figure out an approach to PR that’s far more transformative than inventing a Social Media Release. I’ve got ideas. Need more.
I’d still like to travel Mongolia by horseback to the Golden Eagle Festival. I want to make my way to the Torres del Paine in Patagonia, too. A visit to Turkey and the Pyramids at Giza are on the Bucket List. And while I know it’s not much to see, I want to make the sojourn to the site of the Battle of Thermopylae in Greece — a story I’ve admired since High School History, long before the (awesome) movie, 300.
I’d like to own a convertible. Typical, right?
I want to visit my kids in college, and see their faces light up with genuine delight as I approach. (Hey, a guy can dream.)
I want to meet my great grandchildren, alongside my beaming wife.
Relatively simple goals on the ol’ Bucket List, now that I think about it. (Well, I suppose “transforming the practice of PR” is fairly ambitious! But I am still young enough to aspire!)
What’s on yours?
Posted on: March 17, 2010 at 9:57 am By Todd Defren
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Happy Birthday!
I love the bucket list. That’s great.
Keep us posted! Our daughter was happy to see us last fall, so I agree with Arik – not a stretch. I’m flying her home this weekend as an Easter surprise for my bride. Hoping to see two beaming faces Friday evening!
What a great list of goals – my favorite is “I want to meet my great grandchildren, alongside my beaming wife.” I want to visit all 50 states, learn something new every day, help as many people as I can and be remembered as someone people were glad they knew.
Hi Todd,
As an email subscriber, I’m reading this a day late, which is my birthday! I hope yours was happy. I’m a couple of birthdays past you, which is starting to hurt, but I CAN tell you that the convertible is TOTALLY worth it, even in Boston. And the kids really are happy when you visit them at college which is right up there for the world’s greatest feeling.
Ah, to be 41 again, but I digress…One more bucket-list pilgrimage that you, and every other citizen of this country should make: a visit to the American Cemetery above Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. Anyone today, particularly the under-40s, who thinks that social media is “transformative” will surely, after walking this ground and absorbing the history there, have their definition of this overused term expanded just a bit. It may, for them, also redefine or define for the first time the term “religious experience”. For sure, who you were when you arrived will not be who you are when you leave.
Happy Birthday, my friend. I have no doubt you will continue to transform the PR playing field well into your old age.
Happy B-Day Todd! Hope you enjoy it!
Happy Birthday, Todd! Turkey is great. If you go to Istanbul, be sure to visit the Basiclica Cistern. In the last days of the Roman Empire, the cistern was created using columns from all over the world. It’s interesting to see all of the empire come together in one building.
happy birthday Todd… Life begins at 4…..1…..!
Funny you mention the note about seeing your kids at college. One of my best memories of my Dad is seeing him spring from his car to my dorm (I was watching out the window) when he visited me at KU for the first time 15 years ago. Never forget that. So no, Todd, I don’t think that’s a stretch at all.
My bucket list is really pretty simple, but then again, I’m a simple guy: Watch my kids succeed and grow into mature, well-adjusted (although I’ll be honest, I’d love to see them both explore creative fields); Grow old with my wife; move to St. John, own a bar and live the last years of my life on a warm beach; and continue to explore and build a successful business that allows me to enjoy the rewards life continues to give me.
Not too much to ask, right?
Happy birthday, sir.
@arikhanson
Let me know if you need a business partner for that bar in St. John. Word on the street is that the Donkey Diner will be up for sale in the next few years…
Happy birthday. May all your wishes come true. Never thought of you as beef jerky person. Maybe I need to rethink a few things.
It’s actually my son who loves beef jerky. I’m the guy who always decries the fact that a small bag o’ jerky costs 6 bucks at Whole Foods! He devours it in 3 minutes and wonders what else is in the house to eat!