January 26, 2008

Saturday, January 26, 2008 5:31:38 AM

I had my exit interview yesterday. I wasn't surprised or pleased with the result. Apparently no matter how politely or creatively you tell them it is not healthy for a review score to tell your bosses you have something better to do with your life. The upside my boss wrote into the review that "given the chance I would immediately hire Dan again". He blamed the low score on my recent promotion and the score being reflective of my performance relative to a new standard. Anyway time to move on. There are only a certain number of positive reviews the managers are allowed to give and I think it makes a lot more sense to give the positive review to someone who is staying.

OK so the question to my confidence is, “If I can’t be more successful in something as simple as my current position how can I be successful in something bigger?”. I believe the answer is that I create an environment that rewards my strengths with success and work to mold my deliverables to be things that are produced well by my strengths. I know sleep patterns and general anxiety were large aggressors to my productivity at AMIS. It was also difficult to try to balance several different manager requests concurrently they did not make realistic trade offs between time and scope. I also know that I will be more motivated to do work if I know that I can keep it. With that said it is not like I did a bad job at AMIS I am sure I was on track for a steady rate of promotions. It is just that I was not performing at a level I found acceptable. Or rather than that I think the issue was more that I was not having the impact I wanted to have. I wanted to do long term proactive things where as the company environment promoted short term reactive things. Giving myself the reins of my work list I will be more able to balance the short term against the long term. With that said the reality of needing to eat and pay for health care will bias some decisions father toward the short term than I would like.

An honest check I need to make is that even in my own environment I will need deal with my own weaknesses. In fact what I expect to happen is that my strengths will become stronger and my weaknesses will become weaker. I am really not in the mood to talk about my weaknesses but I am sure I will have to do an analysis at some point. The thing I got dinged for in my review was for not properly scoping a project and poor execution on it. I think there is a risk of that happening in my next endeavor as well. It is much easier to start a program than to finish one. When I think of the disaster our garden was over the last few years I am brought to caution about my judgment. I really hope that I am not starting another garden that I can’t keep up with. With that said what I am doing is I am putting the most energy and resource into the things that matter most to me and yes enjoying life is one of those things. Learning is another. My family is another. I also want to have an impact with my life. When I die I want the world to be better for once having had Dan alive in it. I am certain that my new life gives me more opportunity for making that impact than my life at AMIS did. I truly hope that I will look back on the consternation I am currently experiencing and laugh on it the same way I laugh when I think about all of the stress I went through when I quit my Salmon Bake and Tram jobs. Quitting yes but the jobs didn’t hold a future I found acceptable. A lot more people would find the future offered by my current job much more acceptable however when I look at AMIS I do not see many people carrying the countenance that I want nor living the life that I want.

If I had not seen the vision of something greater I would be content to stay and do what I have been doing but having seen the vision of a life where I own my own work and can spend time with my family in the way I see fit as well as travel as I see fit is irresistible. It is unthinkable to accept anything less as long as it is in my power to get it. While great wealth may not be within my reach earning a living that can sustain my family by producing my own products I believe is well within my reach. It is just an extremely difficult stretch to get it. I was going to say scary but I am through the scared stage now. I have faced my fears and decided they are weaker than me. At this point it is simply a matter of execution. I have the tools, skills and the talents to get done what I want done now I need to do it.

It is an amazing feeling to find the desires of ones soul and then make a commitment to fulfill them. As I have been making my decisions over the last several weeks it has been wonderful to have such a clear idea of what I want. Well when I say clear I mean the direction is clear. The details are still quite fuzzy. When the suburban broke down Wednesday and I faced the prospect of extra expense and extra risk of road failure and difficulty my reaction to the adversity was so clear and resolute toward accomplishing my goal it was electrifying. I felt as if I had the will to run through a brick wall if I needed if the brick was between me and my goal. I have never felt as strongly about reaching a goal in my life and I have never missed on a goal I have felt strongly about. So to make sure I have the goal codified … Develop a life style that allows attention to the most important things in my life and gives me the freedom to create expressions from myself. Hmmm…. I am not quite happy with how that came out. In short I want to make a living working for my self from where ever I want, when ever I want and have the financial resources available to take on interesting projects and take breaks when and as I need them. I can’t seem to get the thought in to words that are as eloquent as the feeling but I think it is healthy to at least get something down and then hopefully I can refine it later into something that is easier to focus on.

In simple terms I would be trilled if I could end 2008 with the $70K or so that I am going to clear on my house. Actually I would be thrilled with $40K because that would mean I had found a way to generate money. The main rule I am going to keep for myself about money is that I cannot resort to long hours as a way of generating money. I may use long hours in my process of generating money but if I am doing anything that is only successful by putting in long hours than I have missed the mark. I want to do something that is successful by putting in smart hours. I want to do something that is successful because it reflects my strengths that I have to offer the world. Also in simple terms I want to get to a point where my basic life needs are met without effort on my part. I don’t want to need to worry about food, housing and medical expenses any more. I want to have the flexibility to take on aggressive time consuming projects.