Getting smacked in the face a third time....or hey losing a job ain't that bad considering.

AS you can probably tell from the previous posts the month of March really challenged our family. It was topped off by the loss of my job on March 31st.

I cannot say it was that big of a surprise. My now previous employer had seen some difficult times with the "parent" or holding company in bankruptcy but all the muckity mucks said things were ok. I knew otherwise with the number of calls I would get from sub-contractors (my friends) regarding late or no payments on invoices. I also was concerned when they let my counterpart in another city go. Hence the writing was on the wall and I began to take some precautions. But you always want to make it on your terms and I did hold out hope that thing would work out. I had just been selected as a preferred contractor with a couple of property management companies and was seeing inroads in other sectors. But the company gave up on me. (They didn't even let me keep my cellphone number. I had it for 12 years.)

This is not the worst thing to happen to me in my life, nor even in the month. The loss of our dear friend Ann is tragic and we (our expanded family) is just now beginning to come to grips with and understand the challenges ahead. We are just now preparing for the coming storms.

The questions now are...What do I want to do to provide for my family and the world? and What color is my parachute?

If you were to look at my resume (You can if you like, just send me a e-mail.) you would see that my last five plus years years of employment have not been very stable. I have been laid off, left a job for family reasons, got hit with the entrepreneurial bug and lost money and now have been laid off again. I have learned a ton in this time and believe that I have a great set of skills and experiences that would fit in may many different locals.

Early on in my last job I found it cute to put quotations in my weekly reports. They would be about money, goals, success, achievement..all those things that are supposed to prop you up. In doing this I found one that really spoke to me. It is from Albert Einstein and talks, at least to me and my personal philosophy.

"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value."

I love that line and I am trying to make this my mantra, for lack of a better term. But I definitely want this to be my underlying theme as I go on this journey for a new job. But what is it that I want to do?

For years friends and family tried to push me towards sales. I finally listened last year and that landed me with my last job. It wasn't really a sales job in the true sense, it was a relationship job. But that is what sales is all about, relationships. I was just starting to get those relationships to work when I got let go. Now I find myself at another starting point.

I AM A PEOPLE PERSON. I like being around all people. Honestly, I like everyone. I am more golden retriever than rotweiler. I am good at making friends. I can hold conversations, I find most any topic interesting and will talk politics with anyone. So maybe the sales thing is for me.

Who knows!?

But for now I am just trying to sell myself. Maybe the relationships I was just starting to build over the last year are the place to start. I have had a couple of interviews and am working the network.

Here is what I do know...I want to make time for my wife, kids, Ann's family and the rest of the world.

I'l up date you in a week or so when I have more.