How I came to rediscover my dream....

 Well, after a VERY long hiatus, I was pushed into action to get back to doing this, and resurrecting the dream...and it all came from a weird and wonderful story

I started this blog back in 2011 when I was working at Salesforce. I had dreams of working and sailing, and being in the SaaS industry, this was a very doable idea. As long as I had internet access and access to an airport, I could work. But you know, life gets in the way, and after a few months, I forgot about this blog and moved on from Salesforce, but staying in the SaaS space. In late 2020 the Covid pandemic was in full swing, people were locked down, I hadn't travelled for work in over a year, and I got a note on LinkedIn from Tom, an old colleague who was still working at Salesforce. The note went something like this 

"Hi Ciaran, hope all is well on your end.  Small world, Karl who I've worked with for years at Salesforce brought up your name on a call, asked if I knew you?  Said you might be a distant relative and wanted to know if I could share he details with you

Well that was weird, how the hell did Tom know my family? I was born in England and raised in Ireland, I moved to Canada and for personal reasons had disconnected from my family. In essence I had run away and hid, not wanting anyone to find me. There was no way Tom could have met someone who knew me, let alone be part of my family, it was just too random. 

I told Tom to let Karl know that I would be open to chatting, and a few days later I received a note from Karl, who was in Pennsylvania, married with kids, and had been there since he was a teenager. Turns out he was a step-brother to my mother, on my grandfathers side - making him my step-uncle I guess. His father was a bit of a lad, and had left my grandmother and moved to England, married and had more kids, Karl being one of them.

Over the next few months Karl and I agreed to chat - no strings, lets just get to know one another. If at any time either one of us wanted out - we agreed to be honest and let the other know. Karl and his amazing wife had been hard at works for a few years piecing together his family history on Ancestry and we got to chatting about the bizarre links between our families, catching up on the weird and wonderful stories we had heard and what he had discovered. It does get a little stranger, as it turns out that prior to joining Salesforce I was part of a very successful start-up that was acquired by Salesforce in late 2010 called Radian6, its how I came to be employed there, and they have a very successful and large customer show in October/November each year in San Francisco with over 60,000 attendees. I was fortunate enough to be invited to the show the year we were acquired and Tom was also there, we were treated like royalty by our new Salesforce family and as Tom was on the Sales Engineering team at Radian6, he was making the rounds with his counterparts in Salesforce Sales Engineering during the show - after talking to Karl recently, we discovered we were actually at the same dinner table - about 20 of us, way back in 2010, and were that close I probably chatted to him that night - without being aware we were related !!!! Yes, there is one more twist, as my career progressed in Salesforce, I was mentored by an able ex military officer named Dan Burnham on the fine art of Partner Management, joining his team. After I left Salesforce, Dan and Karl were working very closely together and we discovered yet another link  between us...its as if the Gods wanted us to meet and were trying their hardest, but each time we just never made the connection. Life is funny sometimes.

So how does this relate to my sailing blog and getting me back into it? Well Karl had been doing his research and came across this blog, and a few months back on one of our monthly catch ups - told me he had read it. I had completely forgotten that I started this, and it kicked by ass into getting this back on track. Since then, I have stated taking sailing lessons to earn my certification along with my beautiful girlfriend Lindsay, who now shares the same dreams I do, to be able to work and sail for a few years before we toddle off to some retirement home and enjoy the memories we will create together. As they say in Newfoundland " Long may your big jib draw". 

To Karl - thank you.....