Lessons from a Basset Hound

Each day we can learn new lessons in this life and there are a few lessons in life we can learn from a dog.

My wife Paula and I resisted getting any pets for the longest time because of her allergies and we already had enough mouths to feed and care for with five children. After a couple years of relentless badgering on the part of our older children we finally broke down, succumbing to the pressure and got a dog for Christmas in 2007, a Bassett Hound, Tootsie.

I am happy to report we have survived the year of her growing from the cute little puppy to becoming a year old, fully grown dog. After 15 years without having pets of any kind, our home is now shared with Tootsie and she has grown to be a member of the family.

We picked out a Bassett Hound because of their gentle nature and have a reputation of being good with children. I had visions of a slow and gentle dog with droopy ears and sad eyes, you have seen the pictures, the cute lazy Bassett hounds.

I have learned that Bassett hounds are cute but are far from lazy and slow. Tootsie is not a hyper small dog but she sure is full of energy and personality. Hence, here are the lessons I have recently come to learn from this addtion to our family.

1. Take time to play. With 5 children in our home, Tootsie always has someone to play with when she wants fun. Even with seven people in the house, there are times when Tootsie can not someone willing to play so she will play all by herself. Tootsie has old stuffed animals she loves to chew on and we often see her in the back yard tossing a stuffed animal in the air and then going to retrieve it. She will do this for about a half hour. No one to play with, fine, Tootsie just plays on her own. Makes me stop and think about the need to better balance our lives with a bit of play and if no one is inviting us to play, then we ought to take Tootsie's lead and create our own fun. Work and busy schedules are part of our world, but we probably need to play just a little more.

2. Enless love. Everyone knows dogs are great companions because of their endless love. You can scold a dog for chewing up a new pair of shoes and five minutes later they are back to your side and loving you, forgetting about the verbal beating they took and your fury becuase they were bad just moments ago. What a great trait. I think the world would be a better place if we all had shorter memories, forgive people and love a lot more.

3. Scratch your belly. Tootsie is a sucker for anyone who will scatch her belly and ears. She folds like a cheap lawn chair the moment anyone even hints at scatching her belly or petting her. If you place your hands on her to pet her head, Tootsie will roll over on her back and ready herself for a full belly scratching. Now, I am not suggesting we all walk into the conference room today at the office and ask everyone to scratch our bellies as that might get an interesting wrtite up from the head of HR, but we ought to take some time out more frequently to show affection and love to our fellow members of the human race.

Sure there are many lessons in life and a loyal family dog is a great example of simple things in life; love companionship and playfulness. I also like the fact that my Bassett Hound tootsie is not over connected like the rest of us. She has no Facebook or myspace page, no twitter account, no cell phone, blackberry, iphone or handheld tracking devices. Tootsie's only electronic device is the small microship she has implanted in her incase she gets lost. The more I think about it, the more I like that concept... find me only when I am lost.

Got to love a Bassett Hound....

Networking - Now is the time to be connected

Over the past 25 years of being in the professional world, I have always believed and practiced the art of networking. The reason for my participation in networking has been driven through my chosen profession of business development, sales and marketing. Its very basic behavior for business development people to network and as an extrovert, I have always enjoyed meeting people.

Studies show that it's far easier to close new business when you are working through established relationships and referrals compared to the opposite end of the spectrum of cold calling and starting relationships from scratch. Makes sense and also applies to any type of professional field even if you are not involved in business development like I am.

In the current economic down turn, networking and managing those contacts is more important than ever. No job or company is secure anymore and the only true security we have is the one we make and building your own security through strong networking is important.

If you are not a rainmaker, a polished networker, or extrovert type of person, let me give you some advice on how to get started and how to work on your networking skills.

Tip 1 : Use the Internet to network through social websites. The Internet is a 24 hour a day tool to keep you connected and grow your network. There are more than 250,000 social sites on the Internet today. You can find general social networks to networks for every type of interest. Here are a few examples.

www.facebook.com
www.myspace.com
www.linkedin.com


Tip 2 : Make a goal to add one new networking connection each week. In a year's time you will have another 52 connections that will be able to help you in your life and connect you to thousands of other people. Do this by inviting others to your network. In a decade you will have more than 500 new connections of people in your personal network and if everyone you network with does the same, you will have connections to millions of people. Do the math...

Tip 3: Make connections with your network each day. Just like muscle, if you don't use your network, it begins a process of atrophy. Reach out and send a brief communication to someone in your network each day. There are so many ways of being connected these days that a text message, phone call, email, write on someones social page, or the best and most effective approach, share a meal or a coffee with someone each day. The important thing is the communications don't have to be about business and the best ones usually are not. We all have birthdays, anniversaries and other life events to discuss and say hello. It's important to to just be a friend, a fellow human being who is walking the planet.

Tip 4: Get a contact management system of some sort to help you manage your network. I use two tools, my handheld blackberry and Microsoft Outlook. With over 18,000 names in my contact data base, it's impossible to remember birthdays, anniversaries, spouse names, children's names and other important tid bits of information. If you are in a business where you are in a sales role, you will certainly want to use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to help you manage contacts that also have revenue tied to them. In this information based world we live in, we were all given the best computer in the world at birth, our brains, but must of us can not remember everything we want, so use tools.

Tip 5: Develop of love of people when you network. I know this may not come natural for many people but neither is lifting weights, reading, riding a bike or just about every other activity we partake in each day because they are learned behaviors. For example sake, I love to read bibliographies because the they are the stories of people's lives. By reading the pages of a bibliography, one gets to see the challenges a person has overcome, the events and people who have shaped their lives, etc. I realize 99% of the people I meet will never have a bibliography written about them, so I look at everyone as a walking bibliography. Each one of them is an interesting story in some fashion and it's a blast to learn about them. Each interaction with a person is a page or snippet from their virtual bibliography. By developing a love of people and sincere desire to learn more about them, you wont come off as a phony or insencear.

Like any other learned activity, networking is a learned skill. You don't have to be a super connector to make your life enriched by networking. In 2009, times are tough and you will want to make sure you are well connected and create your own personal security.

In the past week, I made 13 new network connections, did you get just one?

Expect more, do more, be more...

Rex

Time for change in action, plus 1

It's an interesting dynamic to watch masses jump for joy for the Barak Obama and pin hope on him changing everything that is currently wrong in our world today in the US and locations around the world where the US has vested interests. I am cheering the new administration on and hope they succeed, but hope is not a strategy.

I am sorry to say that the economic down turn, unemployment, the mortgage crisis, war in Iraq and potential war in the Gaza strip are far bigger than just one man and his appointed political cronies to fix. I don't care who was elected, what side the political fence you sit on, these challenges are going to take the collective whole to turn around.

So who is the collective whole? I am talking to you, everyone in our nation. The challenges we face are great but we cant sit back and expect congress and this new administration to fix every thing for us. Passing tax cuts and economic stimulus packages are nothing but band aids on a chasm large enough to swallow an oil tanker. What is needed now is for the collective whole of our nation to do think more, do more and be more. Quoting a friend of mine, fitness guru and best selling author Shawn Phllips, ( www.fullstrength.com ) "now is the time for strength. Strength is defined in having more, being more and doing more".

Wow, sounds real good and motivating but truth be told, if everyone gives just ten percent more effort in all we do, change the way we look at thing, get creative, together, as a nation and an integrated world, we can collectively pull through.

Ok, I know your saying, nice pollyanna speak but here is how we do it. Start small, do plus one in everything you do. I don't care if you are making phone calls, assembling goods, teaching school, studying exams, what ever you are doing that occupies your time daily, do just one more. Make one more call, read one more page, ask one more person how can I help? The collective effort will catch on and soon people will be doing plus one in everything they do.

I am no one, just an average joe business consultant banging out a living but everyone I meet, I tell them "now is the time for your best, the nation, the world, your community and your family need you to do plus one".

Not many read my writings but now is the time. I am doing my plus one, not waiting for capital hill to solve my problems. Can you do just one more too?

Are you over connected? Put down that blackberry

Over the past six months I have watched my 12 and 13 year old daughters start off with blackberry's as a communication devise so their mother and I can reach them when they are at their activities. I have watched in curiosity as a parent watches a child put a puzzle together together, watching them and hoping to see they reach the goal.

As a responsible parent, I would from time to time review the text messages going in and out of the blackberry. What I realized is 99% of the communications going in and out of were senseless and non essential.



here is a typical thread:

Hi, what is up?

nothing

how about you?

nothing

cool

are on the computer

no, how about you?

ugh, I read a couple hundred of these threads and realized that my teenagers really don't need texting. Once I had done this, I then went to start analyzing the communications that my wife and I text to each other plus the email and text messages sent to many professional colleags. My findings were not much different. We are living in a world of over communication. Most of it is noise and not needed.

I challenge you in 2009 to take a step back and look at your level of communications and how much of it is a distraction. How much of it is really needed?

Maybe it's time to put your handheld away and get back to work...