Giving joy to the journey of life!!!

Good evening travelers of the journey!!!
What an interesting day today was.
I had an early morning meeting with men of the Journey reconvening after a summer off. To talk on a life of praise and to be thankful of how God held many of us together during health and employment trials.

A good quote from our speaker, Bill Jolly, was to make sure that we have our buckets full of praise of the events from THAT day. This is especially true since we can only carry gratitude forward for one day!!!  And he challenged us what if  that was the only thing we can carry with us.

I went through the Business Expo and showcase for Fairfield County and got to eat a great Quesadela and had birthday cake to celebrate the Better Business Bureau's 100th year anniversary and had my blood pressure checked and won a small bag of popcorn.

I am thankful for the many seminars I attended from Dale Carnegie to Selling for the non sales professional to a talk on how to give award winning presentations from Debbie Fay whom I have seen several times and always get value from hearing her again and again.

I met several people in my network from a furniture salesman to a graphics printer to a painter friend and an event planner while walking throughout the venue. That same venue where I was 5 days earlier to see Carrie Underwood and Hunter Hayes rock the place with the best Country music that there is.

I could celebrate at the end by being a pen popping professional for the big helium balloons on display. One woman standing nearby rescued one of those balloons!!  So at least I did some productive work there!!

As I was trying to find my way through the maze to get to one of the talks that I wanted to attend, it dawned on me the two words that are intricately linked to my activities for the past 26 months: Networking. It  can be split into Net and work.  The whole goal for those in transition and those seeking to fill their bucket with work is to think of the fishing analogy.  We are supposed to NET our Work.  Very simple yet very profound.  I have been learning the techniques of how that is done.
Now only to make that happen.  And also part of that is the fact that we are worthy of our work as well.  A definite net worth.

And I finally was able to get a call beamed down to me, Scotty, from my job coach. He was in the booth in between the Åmerican and Canadian flags supervising one of his cleaning crew.  We chatted for 8 minutes and I was reminded to ask for opportunities to net some work and he wanted a close up view of what was going on the ground.

So I challenge those who read this to be thankful for a few things and wake up in the morning with that thankfulness to kick start our day and then add to that thankful list even more things. To keep carrying it forward through our lives.  To set up a memorial for us!!

So I close in being thankful for my time at the concert on Saturday that released a little more creativity and passion to my work and to my Toastmasters club that allows me to lead and speak. For those nuggets that get planted and now nourished and sculpted into a work of beauty.

And now to find some work in this famine .  To bring into a feast. Yet, I am thankful for the bounty that surrounds my plate.
Of those faces and lives that I get to interact with each in every day.  Wherever I wander and go.
In times of tornado warning winds to times of searching for that next lecture and to those times when I run into the table and cause a minor tear to the jacket arm.  Times of trouble maybe but times to trust and know that all is going to work out in the end.

So I thank Todd and others who place value on my work and my renewed passion to get it back out into the world to make a difference no matter what or to where I go!!!!