Another great week is finishing up, and it has been an active one – a fortunate thing at a time like this. It’s one that has me wanting to take a moment once more to count my blessings.
There is plenty that I can be grateful for – my family all the way around, especially my wife and my son, the biggest driving forces in my life. We are healthy save for an occasionally annoyance, something I am especially fortunate for with my son as I can only imagine how I would feel if he had serious health concerns. I want to think about things professionally right now, though.
I am blessed to have had the chance to work in technology. It is far from a perfect business, to be sure, but it is enjoyable and affects our lives greatly. For that matter, I am blessed to have never had a manager I was only too happy to not have to report to when I left a company. My luck is bound to run out one day, and I know many are not so fortunate, but I have been blessed.
More to the point, I am grateful for the positive time I have had for over two months. The summer is often a tough time to be a job seeker, as hiring tends to slow down with people on vacation – there’s often a slowdown in new jobs opening up, and interviews are difficult to pull together with one or more people from an interview team often out of the office – but this has been a good time. A few professional organizations slow down in the summer as well.
Despite this, there has been no shortage of activity for me. I have had a very full calendar for the better part of two months, between professional organizations and networking meetings of different kinds. This has allowed me to connect with many people, continue to hone my value proposition from constant practice, and be in positive settings. Doors have opened for me as a result, including two conferences that I will attend at significant discounts. People want to help, and I have been blessed to receive some of that.
The summer is never a time to slow down – it is a time to keep going and set the stage for what is to come. Gary Vaynerchuck touched on this nicely in a recent video he shared on his Facebook page – he spoke about August specifically, but his message is applicable to the entire summer.
It is never fun being in an involuntary job transition like this. That aspect of my present situation is not something to aim for. However, the past couple of months have been about as positive as can be under the circumstances. From that, I have even more positive energy than usual that I am ready to bring to a company, which is one more addition to what I already bring from an experience and skills standpoint.