Living in Atlanta has its perks and being centrally located in the Delta Airlines hub is one of them. I fly a ton and 99% of my flights are on Delta Airlines. Honestly, I used to be really bad about frequent flyer programs and Delta became the first consistent relationship I built with an airline. I have to admit "membership has its benefits" and when you fly as much as I do an upgrade, priority bag handling or same day confirm can make a huge difference. I also doubled up and became a member of the Delta Sky Club which on more than a few occassions of being delayed has been a complete lifesaver (see LAX Two summers ago with wife and two kids--Yikes). Last year despite a couple of journeys to Europe I missed achieving diamond status by a short distance. This year, with a new Social People office in LA, clients in London, new business opportunities in Brazil and a visit to Paris for LeWeb I officially made diamond. As someone who helps Fortune 500 companies with developing social media customer service strategies I have to say that Delta does an AMAZING job of listening to consumers thru social media channels. If I send a tweet to @Delta I get very fast responses from @DeltaAssist and they have been amazing in some very tough situations. Delta is not a current client, I'm just a loyal customer and love to tell stories of the brands that do it right. Very classy move on their behalf in recognizing my diamond qualifying flight. As we were landing an attendant came to my seat with a bottle of wine and as we were landing I was congratulated on the PA.
Here's the Delta red coats waiting for me as I landed tonight from Paris. Getting to diamond means a lot of time away from my wife. Super excited that she happened to be on this flight with me.
I already knew him as a fashion design innovator but the personal tour of his digital/mobile "game" turned me into a big fan. Paris loves Karl.
As an entrepreneur my wife is an "investor" in my company by providing the backbone support for the family. There is ABSOLUTELY no way that I would be able to run a successful business, manage employees and maintain two offices if Sherrelle wasn't operating as COO of the Andrews Family. That trust I have in her managing the details which include but are in no way limited to: Paying the bills, planning vacations, managing the school calendar, researching things for us to do on weekends, and so on, and so on, and on. My wife's ability to organize all the other functions of my life allow me to focus on running the company and simply having the room to create visions and for that she is a huge investor in my company. I cherish the role she plays and really travel when I have to and when in town do my best to support her role. Lastly, my wife is my emotional cheerleader and confidant. It is here where I need and depend on her so much. The way I look at life, business, friends, family can be so out of wack that without my wife giving me a proper grounding and sometimes additional viewpoint I would completely make several "bonehead decisions." I confer with Sherrelle on so many decisions and trust her intution. I know and respect a "woman's intuition" and my wife has the best "Spidey Sense" in the business.
Some of you reading this may not be married yet and considering marriage one day. Maybe you have been married in the past, it ended badly and you are tainted by the whole experience. Perhaps you are in a marriage and are trying to figure out how to get out. Whatever your situation I have this to say to you: Marriage is A MARATHON, NOT A RACE. In plain speak it means that you have to CHOOSE to be married not expect some "oooeey goooey" feeling to take over your body on a daily basis. Our media obsessed culture has many of us totally confused on what real love looks like and most importantly what it takes to survive. So many men I know have a "jacked up" view of sex because of a lust filled culture and pornography. Lastly couples in general lack the commitment to sustainable marriages because of the popular "He/She is not making ME HAPPY" mentality that permeates the way we view marriage. By true confession I'm not a marriage counselor or trained therapist. However (and unfortunately) at 18 years of marriage I'm a member of this rare fraternity of people who make it past 7-10 years of marriage.Here are a few tips that might help you on your journey of marriage:
There are so many tips that I could share but I just wanted to get this blog post off my chest. I hope that you find some of what I'm sharing helpful. As we celebrated our marriage today I felt so blessed and humbled that we have made it this far. DIVORCE IS NOT AN OPTION for us and we truly practice that. I would be nothing if I couldn't at least help a few marriages make it. It's really tough out there and I want nothing else but to see marriages survive. Again without God I would not even be able to write this post and celebrate this marriage. My best to you. Let me know what tips you have.
