Fundraiser Recap

Howdy.  I'm sitting here at lunch and I seriously am about a full week behind on this blog post.  But be that as it may--(I've always wanted to say that in a blog post)--I wanted to share a little bit of my experience of my fundraiser that happened on Sunday, August 10th.

First, a quick recap.  I wanted to sell 35 boxes of coffee in 35 minutes; of which would be spent running the Rose Rudman Trail in Tyler, TX, with all profits going to the launch of LeadChurch in Pflugerville, TX.

Now, some stats.  I sold a total of 18 boxes, none of which were during my run.  They were all in the boxes pre-sold and pledges obtained the week and hours leading up to my run.

Finally, thoughts.  These are things I realized on the trail...

"I'm scared."

It occurred to me that I had no idea what to expect; and that fact really scared me.  It could've ended up wildly successful or a total flop.  And no amount of planning would give me the actual end result ahead of time.

"I'm not ready."

I did not invest nearly enough time preparing for the physical demand that the run would have on my body. I guess because I thought I'd only be running for 35 minutes! Haha?

"My goal was too low."

I remember hearing the advice before: Never make your minimums your maximums.  I realized that my goal was 35.  My result was about half.  Had I set a goal of 100, selling 35 would have been a coffeecake walk.

"Friends are better than strangers."

This one was pretty tough on my ego.  I had made the mistake of thinking that the hearts of strangers that I saw on the trail would save me.  The glorious truth is that an ounce of friendship outweighs a pound of the other stuff every day of the week and twice on Sunday. (Kinda stole that from Matt McConaughey in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past).

But, srsly tho.  People that I had cultivated friendships with the past few years came through in ways that absolutely floored me and opened my eyes to the very simple thought stated above.

"I must be burning like 8 million calories. Which is like, crazy awesome."

Hey.  Pretty cool, huh?

That's pretty much the long and the short of it.  Oh, and I started this post a couple days ago during my lunch break.  In case you were wondering about my intro.  Catch ya'll on the flip.