The Joy Of ‘Mission Accomplished’ (With A Lafayette Bonus At The End)

Includes never before published chapters. What are they? Click here to buy your copy now.

The wild whirlwind wound down last week to a satisfying conclusion. The following column reveals the inside story of what really happened over the last eight months.

Okay, truth be told, it all started ten months ago. I was in the middle of producing a series of “The Greater Western New York Minute” and decided I needed to beef up my studio hardware and upgrade my software. That took a little longer than expected, making it difficult to continue production of those sixty second vignettes.

Well, there’s no such thing as a void in my life. There are merely a never-ending series of windows of opportunity forever opening and closing. It seems like when one window closes, I find another window opening. It happens all the time.

Does that make me special?

No.

Actually, this same situation exists for you, too. You have to look for it, but it’s there. Always.

Do you want to know the secret to discovering these open windows of opportunity? It’s easy. Just have a lot of things you’re interested in. Think of this as a stack of interests.

Have you heard of a talent stack? It’s a list of things you’re somewhat good at. It’s not necessarily a list of what you’re best at, it just things you’re capable of performing suitably well at.

An “interest stack” might be considered the incubator of the talent stack. It’s a list of things you want to learn more about. Life-long learners have unusually long (if not infinite) interest stacks. As you exhaust research and learning for one item, there’s always another item on the list waiting for your next burst of exploratory energy.

That’s where those windows of opportunity appear.

Here’s how it works. There’s an item on the list you want to start diving into. You come up with a plan or schedule to look into it. Such a plan gives you a smooth road to travel down. Sometimes, as you’re looking into an item, you hit an unexpected brick wall. That avenue – that window – is now closed. What do you do?

Well, you can brood about it, mope around all day and rue for what might have been.

Or you can review your interest stack to see which item represents the next best window of opportunity.

That’s what happened to me at the end of last year. With the studio effectively “under construction” for several unplanned months, my ability to create video content was effectively closed. I was disappointed.

Now, when you live in a world of deadlines, you can’t afford to be disappointed for too long. You have to move on.

Believe it or not, as low as that initial disappointment can be, the choices presented by moving on generate an equal level of excitement.

So, if I had to delay further production of “The Greater Western New York Minute,” what would replace it?

As luck would have it, I had just completed a column on the new Lafayette marker placed in the Hamlet of Mendon. In my research on the topic, I realized 2025 would be the bicentennial celebration of Lafayette’s visit to Mendon and the rest of Western New York.

Did you hear that?

It’s the sound of a window opening. A window of opportunity.

Further research pointed to January 1824 as the day when the ball got rolling for Lafayette’s visit. I decided to write a series of columns which began this past January to coincide with the 200^th anniversary of this event. As I delved into the topic, I realized it would make an interesting book. Such a book would provide a benefit to Lafayette fans during the upcoming bicentennial celebration.

But what kind of book?

There are plenty of Lafayette books. What could I write about that would differentiate my book from all the others?

Certainly, I can focus on Lafayette’s “visit” to Mendon (if you’ve been a regular reader of the series, you’ll know why that word is in quotes). That narrow topic would have a very small market. It might not even contain enough material to fill a book.

With the closed window of “The Greater Western New York Minute” still on my mind, it was an easy leap to expand the coverage from Mendon to the entirety of the Greater Western New York Region. As a member of the Government Appointed Historians of Western New York and the Association of Public Historians of New York State, I had met plenty of local historians who might have an interest in this topic.

That proved true. In addition to those groups, both the Daughters of the American Revolution and the New York State Masons also took an interest in the Lafayette Bicentennial. Finally, the American Friends of Lafayette (AFL) of course desired to promote the idea behind the book. In fact, as I was writing the book, I found out the AFL decided to have its annual meeting in Buffalo next June during the weekend that, to the day, Lafayette visited Buffalo in 1825.

I originally wanted to publish the book on July 13^th, the day Lafayette left France in 1824 for his fourteen-month tour of America. Work got in the way, and I had to go with my secondary date: August 15^th. That’s the day Lafayette arrived in New York City.

The book was all set to go on August 15^th, but a technical glitch caused it to be published on August 16^th.

Did my window close?

No. If you recall, Lafayette arrived in New York Harbor on Sunday, August 15^th. But it was a Sunday, and the City didn’t want to disturb the Sabbath with its planned Lafayette celebration. Instead, the big welcome party was delayed to the next day, Monday, August 16^th.

And, just like that, another window opened.

As soon as the book was officially published, my job was done. (Wanna see it? Click here to check it out.) Have you ever had a rush when you accomplished your mission? That’s what I felt.

And it continues.

This weekend, so many people came to the Sentinel booth at the Festival of the Falls to mention how much they enjoyed the Lafayette series. I told them what I’ll tell you right now: the book contains nearly twice as many chapters as were published in the Sentinel.

Thank you all for your kind words.

I wonder what the next window of opportunity will look like when it opens.