It sure has been a demanding week. I am busier now since I lost my job than when I was working. It didn’t help any either that earlier in the week my sinuses seriously troubled me. I’ve been living on Zyrtec since moving to North Carolina.
Monday the Colonial JobSeekers was time well spent and richly rewarding. Dr. David Marsh, a psychologist with the Wake County Human Health Services, gave a very enlightening speech on “Keeping It Real.” It’s a message about sustaining a realistically optimistic outlook during the transitional period. You are more likely to get hired if you maintain a positive attitude. He discussed self-efficacy which has been described as the belief that we are capable of performing in a certain manner to attain certain goals. It is a belief that we have the capabilities to accomplish the courses of actions required to manage prospective situations. I’ve always believed this.
Tuesday I heard from my editor. She loves my concise proposal. She said it is “excellent,” and that’s a quote. She asked for additional bullet points highlighting the business benefit of my book. In her email she said she’d be out of the office for the balance of the week and wouldn’t be able to respond right away. I sent her the business benefits later in the day. I also had to work on my wife’s computer. It crashed during an upgrade to Windows 7 and I had to restore it back to Windows XP. Even though the Windows 7 upgrade advisor said everything was fine and I could move forward, I suppose at 8 years old, the computer’s too old to learn new tricks. I hate blue screens!
Wednesday I helped my friend Rick Trollinger. Rick is the owner of Agape Cruise Travels. He is one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet and he does one of the best jobs I’ve ever seen at providing customer service to his client base. He came over to our house and I spent the morning with him helping to jumpstart his network on Linkedin. By Thursday morning, he already had 645 contacts, 5 leads from individuals wanting to book a cruise and 1 lead from a sales organization in Pensacola that wants to book their group for a sales seminar at sea.
Rick specializes in group cruises and meetings at sea. Have you ever thought about having a sales meeting or training class on a cruise ship? If not, you haven’t “missed the boat.” Cruise ship meetings are very convenient and affordable. If you travel to a land destination for multi-day meetings or training sessions, you could be spending way too much money. In these days of scarce funds and fiscal conservatism, a meeting at sea can save you up to 33%. And cruise ships offer amenities that land based meeting venues don’t. There are free meeting spaces and receptions, all inclusive food, free entertainment, and much, much more. Give Rick a shout if you’ve ever thought about this. Now is the time to act. Rick’s email is rick@agapecruisetravel.com.
Thursday I worked on my book. It was the first time I’ve worked on it in about a week. I read through the introductory chapter, didn’t like what I had written and trashed most of it and started over. It flows much better now and I’m almost happy with it.
Thursday evening I attended the Raleigh Chapter meeting of the Association of Information Technology Professionals. I’m booked to speak there on March 18th. My topic is Authentic Leadership. I am so pleased with what I experienced, I joined the association and will be a regular participant in their monthly meetings. My next blog post will be all about the AITP.
Yesterday was all about social networking and building relationships. Oh yes, I finally opened a facebook account. I’ve done my best to resist facebook but caved earlier this week. It reminds me of the Borg on Star Trek, “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.” In less than one full week I have 349 friends. Won’t you please by my friend, too?
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