The dots that will connect when looking backwards
In July of 2012, I published a post entitled Reflections on one (and a half) years post-Procter. It is now June of 2015, or four and a half years after I left the corporate mother ship, or three years after the last post.
It’s fun to look back and see how things shook out, and maybe try to connect the dots looking backward. Here are some thoughts after reading my previous post again:
I meant to write a post near my 1 year anniversary of leaving P&G, but it’s one of those things that just keeps on getting put aside. So here I am, almost one and a half years after I left the full time corporate world. It’s a great backdrop for reflection… I’m sitting at the pool of my apartment complex at 10:30 PM. There’s something Zen about being in the dark near a gurgling whirlpool overlooking teal blue water lit up by lights.
Continuing my Top 2011 Events…
#5. The Breeze Smoker
The last year or so at P&G I had the pleasure of having a mentor who was as creative and outside the box thinking as I was (you know who you are Nathan). Who would’ve thought he had worked on an expensive hobby for the past 10 years: designing and inventing a better BBQ smoker. So as I prepared to leave the comforts of P&G for the uncharted territory of consulting and entrepreneurship, he offered me a chance to help him market his invention. In 2011, I put up a website, got a gold medal rating on a BBQ website, learned about the BBQ industry, and put in an ad in the Kansas City BBQ Society newsletter (the Bullsheet!). Our website had over 3,000 hits in 2011, and we’ve made our first “organic” sale (i.e. not a friend or family member). I’ve learned a ton working on this, finding my inner marketing person, and learning how to be a salesperson.
Happy New Year all! 2011 was a year of exciting and major change for me: I pushed the reset button in my life. Many of the top items on the list relate to this. The rest of the list fall into two categories: my signature road trips and an amazing year for Wisconsin sports.
Without further adieu… Here are the first 4 of my Top 107 2011 Events! I’m going in regular order (instead of reverse numerical order) this time since it makes it flow better…
One of the best pieces of advice I got about leaving a job was to burn it to the ground because they took your red stapler be ready to go that instant if need be. If you feel compelled to give a notice, give them 2 weeks and be ready to go that minute. That obviously came true in my case, but the other shoe didn’t drop until a couple days later when I found out I wasn’t going to get paid up to my date of resignation. Luckily, I was in a position where I could start at OneCare earlier and I got to skip out of some boring meetings. In other words, if you know you’re going to be gone in like 2 months, don’t feel like you should be generous and let them know 2 months in advance. You might be gone that minute and have no pay for 2 months.