Now what?

Last Friday I retired from the technology sales profession.  After forty three years, I’m leaving it to the young.  I suppose throughout history all generations had trepidations about leaving things to the young: 

            In youth we learn, in age we understand. 

Marcie VonEbner-Eschenbach 

I might understand now.  What thoughts come to your mind when you hear the words “Generation X”?  How about “Millennials”?  I don’t even know what to make out of “Digital Natives”!  Yikes!  Am I feeling what my grandparents and great grandparents felt when it was my turn?  Well, there is always “hope” HaHa! 

We hope that when the insects take over the world they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics. 

                     Bill Vaughan 

Now I’m turning my time and attention to what comes after a career in the technology sales business. For me that is writing.  Thank you in advance for “volunteering” to be my readers.  I hope you enjoy reading my stories as much as I enjoy writing them.  

Since I have never been formally trained how to write, I’m leaning on advice from our favorite, Unknown Sage: 

     Rules for Good Riting 

·         Just between you and i, case is important.

·         Verbs has to agree with their subject.

·         Watch out for irregular verbs which has cropped up into our language.

·         Don't use no double negatives.

·         When dangling, don't use participles.

·         Join clauses good like a conjunction should.

·         And don't use conjunctions to start sentences.

·         Don't use a run-on sentence you got to punctuate it.

·         In letters themes reports articles and stuff like that we use commas to keep strings apart.

·         Don't use commas, which aren't necessary.

·         Its important to use apostrophe's right.

·         Don't abbrev.

·         Check to see if you any words out.

·         In my opinion I think that the author when he is writing should not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words which he does not really need.

·         Then, of course, there's that old one: Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.

·         Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague. 

Yep – you noticed; I already break most of these rules.  I guess I learned about breaking the rules in sales!  With my sales background, I also worry about being verbose: 

            Don't be like the young preacher who had only one farmer show up for his service.  The preacher asked the one farmer what should he do, "Give the sermon or just talk?"  The farmer said, "If I go to feed my cows and just one shows up, I still feed 'em."

     So the preacher lets go and gives his full sermon with all the theatrics and emotion of a truly inspired preacher.

     When he was done and out of breath, he asked the farmer, "How was it?"  The farmer replied, "When only one cow shows up I don't dump the whole load!" 

                        Harlan Goehger 

So there is what’s next for me.  Of course, one of the first orders of business will be to update my LinkedIn profile.  Other than referencing Penny or a Pound Publishing LLC, the rest of the person listed there is who I used to be. 

There’s a story about why I did not acknowledge I had been a Master Sales Enablement Advisor for Oracle NetSuite since 2011.  That story is rife with luck and coincidence just like the rest of my career.  I look forward to sharing it with you some time. 

                                                            GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.