Yesterday was a tough one to come up with a task for. I was going to be spending almost the whole day at Disneyland – what could be uncomfortable about Disneyland? Well, a lot actually. I don’t love Disneyland anywhere near as much as Ann does, but that’s another story. But I couldn’t think of any tasks about Disneyland that would go along with my Comfort Bomb, so I asked Ann for another challenge. So my challenge was to greet 50 people throughout the day. Could be anything, but I had to talk and make eye contact with at least 50 different people.

We were going to have a bit of an odd day at Disneyland. We were going in the morning close to when it opened, and then I had to leave for a couple of hours to go and speak at my networking group (I know it doesn’t make sense that it is uncomfortable for me to greet 50 strangers, but not uncomfortable at all to speak to a group of 40 people for 10 minutes). The morning was totally pleasant. I greeted a few people here and there and thought that the task wouldn’t be so bad. I was in no rush to do all 50 – I figured I would spread them out through the day. Big mistake.

I left Disneyland at about 10:00, went to my networking lunch and was back just after 2:00. My presentation went well and I was feeling pretty good. Only 45 more greetings to go – how hard could it be. I met Ann in the lobby of the Grand Californian hotel where she was resting a bit. Then we made our way back over to Disneyland – and it was … let’s just say that packed doesn’t even start to describe what was going on in the park. There was no personal space. It was like the whole park was one big line. There was seriously no space anywhere. It was… oppressive. Or claustrophobic. Or some other word that means that I really wanted to get out of there and just be by myself for a while.

But I hadn’t done my task yet. And besides, Ann really loves Disneyland, and we were set to be there all day to watch the Main Street Electrical Parade that night (and no, I did not complain or let Ann know how uncomfortable I was feeling because this day was for her and I didn’t want to do anything to ruin it for her). I tried to busy myself by trying to accomplish my task, but at this point, it was much, much harder. I think most of the people there were feeling the same soul-sapping oppression that I was (except Ann – she was still having a great time). No one would make eye contact. It felt like there were a million people there, but I couldn’t find anyone to talk to. Of course, I found people to talk to at dinner, and I talked to some Disney staff, but it was after dinner time and I had talked to about 10 people. I was beginning to worry a little.

Luckily, it really thinned out after dinner and I started to feel like a human being again. We sat down to stake our claim for a good spot to watch the parade and this is when progress started to be made. I talked to the groups of people that sat down around us. I asked all of the different workers around us questions about where the best spots to watch the parade was. I went shopping to find a towel for us to sit on (and had to ask in several shops to find one that had a towel). I asked around to find a stall that was selling hot chocolate.

We ended the parade and I had talked to 45 people – only 5 left to go. We rode one more ride and stopped in the art gallery and I talked to another 5 in there and I was free! We left shortly after and I was exhausted.

Takeaway:

Don’t procrastinate!!!!!!!!! I could have seriously knocked this task out before I left at 10:00. It was so easy to talk to people in the morning. Everyone was fresh and happy and excited to be at Disneyland. But I got overconfident and thought I could do it later. And that made my task so much harder. I think that’s another part of the intentionality theme that seems to keep popping back up in every daily task. Maybe I’m supposed to be learning something here…