Walk Into the Future

Tag: Inspiration Man

  • Poetic Fridays

    Poetic Fridays

    (Image by Christine Sponchia from Pixabay)

     Motivated?

    What motivates you?

    I would guess things quite different from what motivates me

    The drive I seek comes from things I have seen

    Some good, some bad

    Some fair, some foul

    The secret here is to use them all

    Never let the opinion of others sway your desire

    To reach the pinnacle you aspire

    Continue to work to meet and exceed your goals

    Remind the doubters that you are in control

    Dreams will become reality soon enough

    Got to keep working because life can be rough

    Find your motivation, live your dreams

    A motivated life is a wonderful sight to be seen

     

    Knowledge

    The series of daily challenges presented

    Provides a template to view

    How to conquer the challenges?

    It is all up to you

    Life provides many opportunities to grow

    The direction you chose, only you will know

    Continue to strive through the growing process

    Knowing that you hold the key to it all

    The knowledge you gain

    Helps to move your journey forward

    And makes the challenges easier to maintain

    Note:  All original verses by the author.

  • The true anniversary date

    anniversary image

    (Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay) 

    “A year from now, you will wish you had started today”.

    (Karen Lamb)

    Dictionary.com defines an anniversary as the yearly recurrence of the date of a past event and the celebration or commemoration of such a date.

    The first Walk into the Future article was posted on this site on 6/18/2018.  The true anniversary date for me is 4/14/2018—let me explain why I say this.

    I sat on the beach at St. George Island (SGI) on 4/14/2018 with the idea of deciding which direction I wanted to pursue moving forward.  The Walk into the Future concept was not on my radar but needed the beach atmosphere to help with a huge decision.

    So, I sat on the beach on this prophetic day with my beach towel, cooler of beer, reggae, pen, and paper to figure this thing called life out (Prince reference).

    I have used the concept of a pros/cons list in the past to help with major decisions and my goal on this day was to identify pro/con items to inform the decision I needed to make.  Dr. Henry Cloud identifies successful people do not hang on to bad stuff for long in his book 9 Things you Simply Must do in Love and Life.  The only way to label something as bad is to take a true look at it without emotion, hence the pros/cons list for me.

    I finally admitted I spent too much time determining if I should stay in my old role.  The interactions I had with students, employers, faculty, staff, and community members still appealed to me but there was always something daily to eliminate my joy.  Turns out it was too much negative workplace energy.  This is not a complaint just a stated fact from my perspective—negative energy can and will wear you down over time.

    Fast forward to the list and the decision was obvious!  There were  5 pros and 15 cons.  I tried to manufacture some additional pros just to see if I could even this process out a bit, but this was the final tally.  The 15 cons were present EVERY day and only 3 pros were daily items.  I was amused when I saw the disparity of my two lists.  I subconsciously knew this to be true but never wrote it out to examine more in-depth.  Sadly, none of the cons listed were fixable—not one.

    I laughed when I was able to view the list for the insight in front of me.  So, on 4/14/2018 the Walk into the Future journey began after I made the decision it was time to move on from what I was doing.  The work and making a difference daily were not the problem it was the negative energy—the opposite of the Irie mindset I seek in life.  Dr. Cloud has another principle he calls Pull the Tooth.  I decided to pull the tooth and Walk into the Future after I finished my beer and listened to a few more Bob Marley songs.

    I decided to write this post after looking in my journal and coming across the page with my pros/cons list.  Just happened to be 2 years to the date I wrote the items and wanted to share with my readers I just had an anniversary.

    So, happy anniversary to the Walk into the Future blog. Here is to a few more years of writing, sharing adventures and making a difference in the world.  Thanks for walking with me!

    What tooth do YOU need to pull?  How could the pros/cons list help with your decision?

     

    “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing”.

    (Walt Disney)

  • Pivot into the Future

    Pivot butterfly

    (Image by GLady from Pixabay)

     “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be”.

    (Maya Angelou)

    The Walk into the Future blog and my parallel journey began on May 21, 2018.

    Did not know how much my mindset and writing style had changed over the past two years until I started looking back at the archive articles.  Happy to see improvement in my article design, verbiage, visual appearance, and storytelling abilities.  Never want to think I am in the same place when I started especially with Walk into the Future as the blog title.  Still got more things to learn to ensure my content grabs a reader’s attention and attracts new readers to the blog.  Will leverage new techniques, visual presentations, guest bloggers and concepts to stay fresh in the blog world.

    Five examples I highlighted for a Walk into the Future were:

    • Take that vacation you have been putting off
    • Decide to create your own blog to document your walk into the future
    • Make time for family and friends (again)
    • Discover new talents you may have or wanted to explore
    • Live life the way you want to

    Did not keep a running tab of how well I was doing in these areas but happy to report I have repeatedly checked off each item listed above, multiple times.  My initial vision for my Walk into the Future was basic but I have been able to grow through personal development and gravitating to things I enjoy.

    Sounds simple enough but the concept of generating content for the blog has been a life course on:  continuous learning, networking, research, leadership development, mentoring, storytelling, public speaking, traveling, training, running, marketing, cold calling, selling, patience, blogging, blog design, Word Press, podcasts and the art of pivoting.

    I identified everyone should be prepared to pivot as needed in a previous post about overcoming fears.  There are times a fundamental change in approach is needed to get what you want (quoting myself here).

    Throwback article:

    2020 Pivot

    The Walk into the Future blog has been a fantastic incubator for my time, thoughts, and actions.

    I was presented with multiple opportunities to join forces with others based on the growth mindset I have gained from Walking into the Future.  I have been extremely selective on who I work with and what projects I decide to add to my portfolio.  No more Big Gulps for me!

    Happy to report my Walk into the Future has relocated to Fort Pierce, Florida.  I will create new tree branches as the Director of Career and Transfer Services at Indian River State College.  I was able to leverage my past work experiences AND my Walk into the Future topics, adventures, and growth during the interview process.  The ability to relay real-world examples on how I interact with others, my mission to make a positive impact and desire to be a People Builder were leveraged to show impact I will have at Indian River State College.

    This pivot creates a larger audience for Inspiration Man and allows me to keep my Walk into the Future moving forward.  Excited for the new adventures, location, beaches, tree branches, thoughts, actions, energy, and blog articles.

    The Walk into the Future journey continues, just from a new location.  I am sure I will write most of my future articles from the beach with an ice-cold drink close by. 😊

    The Walk into the Future production process has generated a roadmap for two new projects I am working on in 2020.  The first project will be to develop several Walk into the Future leadership articles into a concise eBook titled, The Voice of a Leader.

    The second project will be to develop an on-line Authentic Leadership course to help learners understand the leadership model and the variables needed to become an authentic leader (self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, relational transparency, and balanced processing).

    These projects are exciting to me since I will get to learn how to create an eBook and build/design an on-line course people would be interested in.  More to come as I get smart on both platforms.  The eBook will come first since I have got the content at my fingertips, just need to organize, and reformat—sounds easy enough, huh?

    Interesting fact (to me)

    I view life as a daily adventure and continue to seek ways to make a difference in this world.

    One area I explored was teaching psychology courses since I do have a PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology.  Seemed simple enough but a funny thing happened on my Walk into the Future.  I applied to the local community college to teach General Psychology as an adjunct professor.  Repeat, an adjunct professor! Never heard back from them even after reaching out to people in the department via LinkedIn and direct email.  Ironically, if they had leveraged my talents in the classroom, I may have missed this amazing pivot opportunity.  Things happen for a reason—Irie!

    Tree branches will still receive text messages, emails, and LinkedIn articles from me. You have all been a major part of my journey and look forward to expanding our reach—just from another location.  Walking, smiling and inspiring into the future!

     “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity”.

    (Amelia Earhart)

    irsc project wall

    (Summer 2020 project wall)