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On Playing Hooky

"Sh*t, he knows..." my mom shot me a panicked glance from across the mattress store.

It was 1pm on Tuesday, March 21, 2000. I was supposed to be in school.

My mom took me to Tower Records to buy the latest *NSYNC album as soon as it opened that morning -- she fully supported my addiction.

But when we stopped at Mattress Firm on the way home, she didn't expect my dad -- who most certainly didn't approve of playing hooky or buying *NYSNC albums in lieu of going to school -- to drive by and see us in the window.

Busted.*

Yesterday was one of those days where my calendar was filled to the brim with meetings, deadlines, and assignments, but I couldn't really bring myself to do much of it.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday (minus its origin story).

It was my parents' favorite, too.

Now that they've both passed away, Thanksgiving is a painful reminder of how big of hole their absence has left in my life.

We would've shopped together all week, cooked all day, and even reminisced over dinner about the time my Dad caught me and my Mom playing hooky through a Mattress Firm window.

Ah, to share the kind of stories that got you in trouble back then that you can all laugh about now. What I wouldn't give...

So instead of hopping right into my to-do list and meetings yesterday, I asked my therapist to switch to a phone call and took our session from a local park on the water instead.

I swung by the library I basically wrote my entire book at and renewed my library card because it reminds of how much time Dad and I spent at the library when I was a kid.

And I grabbed a beautiful "holiday pot," as my mom called them, on the way home so I had some holiday cheer to see every time I come and go from my house.

Sure, I started work a few minutes later than usual...

But I wouldn't have been able to give you, my team, or any one else much of my love and attention if I hadn't.

As you go into your holiday with your fam, and you inevitably get hit left and right with messaging around Black Friday sales (both as a buyer and a business owner), remember this:

This is your business.

You can run a BF sale or not. You can plan your year around it next year (especially if you have my free Annual Planner guide. You're welcome!) so you don't have to work over the holiday season.

I get that I've built my business to the place that I can "afford" to not run a Black Friday sale.

But I did this when I made very little, too.

You can play hooky from what everyone else is doing. This is your opportunity to decide what's worth blowing off and what's not.

Before I go, I hope you know:

I'm so grateful for you being here.

Writing to you each week is the highlight of my job.

I hope you enjoy my emails and find some use, cheesy humor, or inspiration in them.

I'm also so grateful for many of the people in this space who are doing good work and are actually trying to help you.

Check out some of what they have to offer you in the Links section below.

Have a great holiday my friend.

*By busted I mean that my Dad walked into Mattress Firm, my mom ended up buying him a new mattress, and then we went to Chili's where my super-picky-eater dad got french fries and we split a Molten Chocolate Lava cake. Hopefully you know by now that my parents got divorced when I was 1 month old. They were best friends (and my mom would want me to tell you that she paid for everything for him.) ❤️

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🔗 Links You'll Love

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✔️ Finally, Your Task This Week

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Have a great holiday!

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