The best version of myself

Hi everyone...

Well, this is awkward. I have been silent for a bit. It has been over a month, and I have yet to post. So here we go.

It has been a week since my three-month contract ended, so technically, I am unemployed again. Is this what it feels like in between real estate transactions? DANG, I have a new respect for you folks.

So here is what happened:

1. I turned 40
2. I got tired of losing my hair
3. I shaved my head (full Britney Spears mode)
4. Resented the world
5. Felt like a failure to my family

So yeah just your average mid-life crisis. I listened to my press for the last ten years and let that define who I am. Joe Manning, the prominent Director to C-Level stud. Handsome too. Of course, I am more than that, but I forgot.

So this is what I have been doing, other than having complete meltdowns:

1. Talking AND listening to my most trusted friends (Jim and Brian), family (Petya and my Dad), and peers (Keith, Tei)
2. Acting on their advice

In more detail, I have been trying to be the best version of an unemployed person that I can be. For the last nine days, I have been working intensely on that. Each day I wake up, pray, study (I will get to that later), exercise, meditate, clean something, and embrace my wife. And you know what it works.

I am still consulting with CEOs on projects and working on some long-term stuff, but short term, I am working to redefine who I am. I am a father, a husband, a son, and a friend.

Anyway, when I said "study" earlier, I was referring to getting some new hard skills to go with my soft skills. I am currently blasting through a 10-month Google Data Analytics Certification. I chose this route because it has been one of those things I enjoyed doing and building in the past. I also decided to write down all the data projects I have worked on since I was little, and it was interesting to reflect on things I built or worked on and how much fun I enjoyed.

1. When I was about 16, I built a catalog in Filemaker of all my father's sales sample inventory in our garage.
2. When I worked in Mortgage, I used Microsoft Power BI to find the highest ROI between cheap and expensive leads.
3. For fun, I used Google Sheets with a live cryptocurrency price plugin to demonstrate the real price possibility for smaller coins.
4. A baby tracking app to see when it was time to switch from two naps a day to one
5. In real estate, I used Zoho Analytics to find a lot of insights into the correlation between success and CRM adoption, training opportunities, Mortgage adoption, Help Desk opportunities, and time to close by using Disclosures.io vs. not.

Each of these projects was fun to work on, helped the stakeholders, and made me feel like I was using hard skills and experience to build something. This experience is why I am studying now. To make it official and validate that skill and experience.

When the certification is complete, Product Management has my eye, but I want to focus on one goal at a time here.

So I have no Real Estate Strategy for you here today. Just an update. Your takeaway could be "who are you?" and "what do you do during downtime?" Take that class you have been ignoring. Be the best version of yourself.

Apps used:

1. Todoist, my daily checklist
2. Calm, the meditation app
3. Coursera, the certification tool

Enough about me; HOW ARE YOU?