Prior to this entire lockdown, I was really busy.

There were the buildup and preparation for the Copy Accelerator live event in Las Vegas. Which, for me, started on a Tuesday beforehand, with arriving at the hotel and doing a dry run, and didn’t end until Saturday evening.

Then, the following week I went to San Diego with plans to stay at an Airbnb for an entire month. While there, I did an all-day workshop at Shanda Sumpter’s Marketing Mastery event in Coronado on the Thursday following the Copy Accelerator Live Event.

That weekend I was supposed to go to Neil Patel’s Mastermind in San Francisco, but it was canceled due to fears around the coronavirus.😷

Then the following week was The Copywriter Club in real life, as the virus started to be taken seriously in the U.S.

I attended the Speaker’s Dinner on Wednesday and presented on Friday, the 13th of March.

That was the last event I attended and one of the last times I was in a crowded public place. 

For the rest of March.

I’d been planning on being one of the main presenters at Mimosa Mastermind in San Diego on March 30th, then attending Traffic and Conversion. After that, I planned on going to the 100MME Mastermind in Miami, from April 3-5.

After that, I had plans to be in Italy for two weeks in mid-April, as I was the featured presenter for an Italian Copywriter Summit. Following Italy, I was planning on swinging back to Miami for a couple of days, then going to my friend’s wedding in Cancun at the end of the month. From there I planned on flying to Connecticut to attend, and present, at Brian Kurtz’s Titans Mastermind, at the start of May.

It was a pretty crazy schedule honestly, but in the swing of things, it didn’t even seem all that crazy because I was just in the flow. 🗓

Here’s the thing, though…

I’m actually pretty thankful to be in lockdown, because it’s forced me to slow down a little bit, and I’ve been able to spend some INCREDIBLE time with my wife and daughter.👨‍👧

Because, if I’m being honest…

While yes, I do try to be the best father and husband I can, I was noticing that prior to mid-March it felt like there was a bit of a disconnect growing between my daughter and I, even in San Diego as the lockdown was beginning.

I was still going to a Regus office I’d rented so I could do work and I was spending most of the day away from home. Then when I got home, I was working more. It just seemed that even though I was trying to be truly present for my daughter, the truth is, I was mostly distracted.

You know it’s bad when you are with your daughter and she falls down and gets a boo-boo, but instead of running to you, she starts calling for mom or the nanny.  That was starting to happen, and I didn’t like that feeling AT ALL, especially when she called for the nanny.

I wasn’t resentful, I just knew that the reason it was happening had to do with me, and the fact that I wasn’t being engaged with her on a regular basis.

Since we’ve been back in Las Vegas, I haven’t been leaving the house. Originally, I’d thought maybe I’d go to my office still, but I decided to try working from home instead. Honestly, I am SO GLAD about that decision.

I’m actually way more relaxed here…

But the best part is that I can walk away from my computer in the morning and go get my daughter up from bed, then hang with her for the first 30 minutes of her day while she eats breakfast.

After her breakfast, I do go back to work, but she comes by and visits me at my desk periodically, and just seeing each other throughout the day is making a really big difference.

One morning last week, I took a break and we went for a walk around the neighborhood. And most days I’ve been getting up around lunchtime to take her upstairs and put her down for her afternoon nap. Then, when I finish my day at around 4 pm or 4:30 pm, there’s no commute, I just walk into the kitchen and join her in whatever activity she’s doing and we spend the next several hours playing.

We have a whole nighttime routine before bed. My wife Laura pretends to be a monster, Eden jumps into my arms and we run around the room hiding from her – it’s the best.

This weekend, our family spent every waking moment together, too…

We put up a little playground in our backyard with swings and a slide, went for multiple walks, had a few drives through Red Rock Canyon, and yes, watched plenty of Frozen, both 1 and 2.

And this coming week…

I’m planning on taking some morning walks with my family again. The weather is going to be in the mid-seventies every day so I’m gonna fire up the pool heater too, so I can go swimming with my daughter in the afternoons. She loves to swim.

Also, we haven’t had our nanny since getting back to Vegas…

She’s too freaked out about the virus, and she’s 73 years old so I get it, and frankly, that’s been great.

Laura has been doing such a wonderful job with Eden throughout the day. And she’s managing to be a supermom while also still running, and scaling, her skincare line, which is just insanely impressive. I’m so proud of her!

Now I know, this is a long-winded post about a subject you may not really care much about, but I had to share. Since, for me, a lot of this comes back to mindset and perspective.

When I first heard yesterday that the government is extending their lockdown guidelines for another month, there was this moment of, “holy crap, we’ve got to stay at home for another freaking month!?”, but then I thought about it more and realized what a blessing and opportunity this is.

It means I’ve got a whole month ahead of me to spend every single day with my wife and daughter…

To watch my little girl grow, to give her hugs, and teach her about the world. I’ve got at least thirty more days of slowing down, and I just couldn’t be more thankful for that.

I know we’re very lucky. We’re diversified, have cash, money is coming in, nobody is sick, etc. My heart truly goes out to those who are in a much less fortunate position than us.

While I acknowledge that a lot of people are suffering right now, it doesn’t mean I can’t also be thankful for my family and the moments we spend together either, and that’s what this post is all about.

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.