Month: December 2019

Skills

Being a chaplain requires certain credentials, skills, training and experience. I possessed those things in the spring of 2003.

Consequently I took a job as a hospice chaplain. I was assigned a group of patients already on service to provide spiritual care. As more patients came on I provided care to them as well. In the course of my duties I was asked to conduct worship services, funerals, weddings, baptisms and various other tasks of the clergy. It was a job I had spent years developing the skills necessary to conduct.

I did not have to think about drumming up business, finding customers or selling people on my offering. When I took the job more than enough opportunity was given to me. As I continued to work and became known in the community the ancillary requests increased as well.

I stopped working as a chaplain In the fall of 2009. I longed for adventure and competition. Two things being a chaplain did not provide. I went into sales.

In sales the goal was specifically to drum up business, increase market share and find new customers. I am not sure how good I was at sales. However, I did possess a skill for getting sales jobs.

I was good at applying, getting interviews, being offered positions and moving up in salary and rank. From the time I left being a chaplain to the spring of 2017 I had tripled my salary and held executive leadership positions.

Now I scribble blog posts and advocate for objective focused growth. I was paid a salary as a chaplain and as a sales leader. I made money because my skills were seen as valuable. I was paid a regular salary in exchange for my loyalty to the company and cause.

How to I survive doing this?

I am an introverted person. My writing is personal and reflective. Does it appeal to anyone else? How do I consistently share it in a way that is mutually beneficial to the writer and reader?

Dominant energy

I was watching a show this morning with my daughter. The main character auditioned to sing the opening number for a television talent show. The whole episode was the adventures she had during the process.

But the character I noticed most was the impresario who was running the show.

He was surrounded by assistants that helped him pull the levers and move the production forward. He had the objective focused energy.

I probably wasn’t supposed to notice him but that is where my head is at now. I thought about the energy it took to decide he wanted to have a show, hire people to realize his vision and hold auditions for singers.

I am realizing more and more I have dueling energies. The one who wants to create worlds and interact with people. And one who wants to burrow down and passively observe the world or just partake in distractions.

For all of my life the observer has been my dominate energy. Even now on a Friday morning I feel the pull of skating at work and relishing the energy of a weekend close at hand.

As I wrote earlier I believe this has to be the way I connect and build a world. It is what I go to in my dominate energy and I do regularly and it is something I can share with others.

Score touchdowns

When a sale fell through I grew frustrated. I cursed the missed opportunity and fell into self pity.

I wondered how I could put so much passion into something and come up empty. The presupposition being I was giving maximum effort, doing everything right and just experiencing unwarranted bad luck. I even thought maybe my despondency might portend a lucky break on the horizon.

If my efforts are not producing results then it is up to me to change my approach. Blaming bad luck is no more acceptable than accepting failure.

In the end it is my job to score touchdowns, win enough games to make the playoffs, then win every playoff game through the championship. Bad luck, tough competition, blown calls, missed chances are nothing but excuses.

I cannot accept excuses in that scenario. I cannot accept excuses in any scenario.