The Lumineers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uoCPHwPtZM&feature=related

:)

Searching for a job is rather challenging. You need to have some idea of what you want to do, where you would like to live (and work as well) and then you need to figure out how to find the jobs that fulfill these requirements. I feel fortunate to know what I want to do. I would like to be an Investment Analyst for a Commercial Real Estate owner/developer/investor. Essentially I want to be working with the people who make decisions for what to buy/sell and/or are responsible for making the managing decisions for a portfolio of properties. As far as location goes I'm pretty open (and becoming more so by the day) but I also have clear preferences like Denver, Chicago and Minneapolis. I thought I was one of the fortune was to at least know what I would like to be doing and actually have some experience/background to stand on. But when you are unemployed for this long (almost 4 months) you begin to wonder.... about lots of things, excess amounts of "free time" really lends itself to wondering. But especially about working and the future. I'm pretty sure I always spend plenty of time thinking about the future but I bet I spend even more now. I find it somewhat curious that I spend more time thinking about the future when I am essentially unable to plan for the future. I'm currently able to plan 1-2 weeks out. HA HA... Man that really just sounds pretty horrible AND in that sense it is pretty horrible. Oh.. shoot. Can this please be over soon?!? Sometimes I consider giving up (temporarily) on the career job search and moving to Colorado, out to the mountains and getting a service type job to get by... Ah! Spending an entire winter living out on the slopes seems like it would be pretty good. Maybe. At least I will be heading back to Chicago next week for an interview. Hopefully that goes well or the company I have been in contact with and had 2 phone and 2 interviews with since the end of June will finally make a decision. A few things I am thankful for in the meantime. Living in the same city as my sister and brother-in-law. Extra time with them has been a nice bonus. Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Maybe a little fruity but I am pretty sure that might be my favorite drink period. Also one of the most "seasonal" drinks. Right up there with Egg Nogg. Fall... Great weather. Potential adventures. (I'm planning to go camping up at Lake Superior this weekend!!) Fantasy football. Lots of fun and one of the things me and my brother-in-law spend tons of time talking about. New Running Shoes. I'm trying to use some of my extra time to get into running. Such an incredible sport of discipline and patience. It has been difficult but I believe the rewards of becoming a "runner" are well worth it. Flannel shirts.

The necessity of work

“Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.” Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers Being unemployed for nearly 4 months, that sounds like a long time, has given me opportunity to think about the value of work. Since I haven't had any, HA! Recently I have been helping my parents with some projects around the house. Which have included painting. Honestly I was not very excited about the prospect of helping out with these projects when I was first informed. But since I have been helping out it has be interesting to notice the impact that taking part in some meaningful work can affect my outlook on life or mood. I enjoy doing work that has a high connection between effort and reward like mowing. When you finish mowing you are able to clearly see the product of your labor. Painting also has a very high connection between effort and reward which has been very nice for me since I feel a need to do productive things each day. When job hunting I feel like I spend so much time and effort without a clear reward. I can spend an entire week searching for positions and applying online without ever getting contacted for a single position. I believe that is a major part of what makes the job search such a difficult thing. I also believe the connection between effort and reward was one of the things that made my second internship so difficult. There seemed to be a low connection between effort and reward. Which I think is what made it difficult to stay focused, that and the fact that I was constantly trying to figure out what was next in terms of my future job and city. Last night I was sitting out on my parent's back porch sharing a few beers and consequently thoughts with one of my best friends, I believe he is in fact my longest friend (since I have known him as long as I can remember), Matt Stephenson. He was detailing how challenging his work was because of weight of going into the office and sitting at a computer from eight to five everyday. I can say that I still remember the exact challenge he was speaking of. We tried to figure out if there is a better alternative or if were we just romanticizing something different. Is there connection between effort and reward predetermined by the work that we do or can we work to discover or expose the connection in a more obvious way? Should the work we are looking for have more to do with the quote at the begging of this post or the relation it has to our financial well being? Maybe it is both.

Summer 2012 #2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvCBSSwgtg4 I heard this song this last week and within 30 seconds of it playing on pandora I went over to see who it was because I knew I really liked it. I love when you are listening to a song for the first time and you just know that you really like it. My one complaint with this song is that it is about a minute short. They really needed to add a few more lines to make it a longer song. Anyways, enjoy!

Attitude

"Your attitude about who you are and what you have is a very little thing that makes a very big difference." -Theodore Roosevelt

Some Nights

For the past 3-4 years I have had 1-3 "Songs of the summer" This is #1 for summer 2012

Giving

Last night I was fortunate to get together with Chuck. I met Chuck through the ESL program I helped out with this past year. He and his wife ran the program I helped out with. Getting to know Chuck and Sue over the past year has been a blessing. They invited our group of 6-10 leaders over to their house for a meal, which I made sure to never miss since they are AMAZING hosts, almost monthly. The passion for people and desire to "not go quietly into the night" are two of the things I enjoy most about those two. Chuck and Sue are in their 60's and have run a small construction company together for years. They seem to be pretty well off and unlike most of their generational counter parts they choose not to spend all of their evenings closed off in their home or just hanging out with their friends. They put a lot of time and effort into running a once a week evening ESL class for refuges who are not able to make the day-time classes offered buy the Lutheran Services organization. Anyways Chuck and I had talked about getting together for coffee for a few months now and until last night had been unable to work it out. So last night we spent a few hours in conversation and one of the things we started talking about was giving. It started with Chuck telling me a story... He said one time a few years back he decided it was time upgrade his mower even though his current one was still working. So he asked one of his employees if he would like his mower, his employee said sure. A few weeks later he was with two of his employees and one brought up to the other that he still owed him fifty dollars. Chuck asked why, the one employee said he sold the mower Chuck gave him to the other employee. My first reaction was a thought about the parable of the unforgiving servant. Then Chuck made sort of a can-you-believe look and then said something to the effect of so I said to the employee "you can't sell that mower, I gave it to you". The employee quickly retorted "Yes I can, you GAVE it to me. So I can do whatever I want with it". I continued to think about the parable and was thinking that it was a pretty crappy thing to do. Then surprisingly he started defending the employee. He said the employee was right. Chuck gave it to him and if he was honest their shouldn't be any considerations attached. Which got me thinking about the attitude we give with and then Chuck said "We are called to give to the church freely, we are not called to direct". Basically when we give with an attitude of concern for how wisely our donation is being used or what it is going towards we are trying to put considerations on our giving or direct our giving. This is something I have been specifically challenged with in regards to support specific ministry staff on a monthly basis and finding myself thinking "Wait a second, when they are going on that vacation or buying xyz.... that is nicer/better/cooler than whatever I have. Should I be supporting them?" Thought this was a good challenge for my attitude in giving.

Homeless

I am homeless for the first time in my life... Maybe that is being a little dramatic but I don't officially live anywhere. At the end of June I moved out of my place in Des Moines. My internship finished in the middle of May and I have been unemployed ever since. So how have a spent almost two full months of "free time". Well I started out really enjoying having the extra time. I felt like I was on summer vacation like the good old days of high school. I spent time biking, reading, running, hanging out with friends and trying to figure out what was next. It honestly wasn't to stressful at first, it was actually rather enjoyable. After a few weeks of little feedback from job applications I realized I needed to start doing something different. So I decided to spend some time going to the cities I wanted to be in. I spent a long weekend with my parents in Minneapolis and had a couple networking meetings then went back to Des Moines to prepare for a longer trip. I left Des Moines for Manhattan, KS where my brother lives. He does construction so I thought I might be able to work for him to pay for some of my trip expenses. It worked out pretty well I worked for him for 4 days and covered the cost of my trip. From there I kept heading west to Denver where I spent 5 days roaming around downtown meeting with different people who are working in the industry I am trying to work in. Overall it was a good trip. It can be pretty uncomfortable to shoot out emails to people you don't know and ask them if you can meet with them to talk and get some advice but almost everyone I met with was very helpful and friendly. I'm thankful for the kindness that was extended to me by people who did not benefit from giving me their time and advice. It was really good to hit the road and get out of Des Moines I think it helped me to confront some of the hard decisions I needed to make. One of them being moving out of my place in Des Moines. I decided to leave because outside of the company I did my internship with there are practically no real estate companies in Des Moines I would like to work for. I've also wanted to live in a new city & state ever since I graduated high school. I didn't quite anticipate joblessness pushing me to make the move but it could end up being something I will be very grateful for in the future. I spent 10 days in Minneapolis with family and am now back in Des Moines to spend a long weekend with friends and then head to Chicago on Tuesday for an interview on Wednesday that will hopefully turn into a job. If not I will be spending some more time on the road and then heading to Minneapolis for at least a couple weeks to try and figure out what is next. I'm strongly considering a move to Denver probably at the beginning of September if I haven't gotten a job by that point. I was hoping to go out at the start of August but I have a week long trip to Virginia in the middle of August that makes moving then less practical. I'm thankful for the challenge of unemployment. It has not been easy but it has been a welcomed wake up call. I have had the opportunity to have a lot of time to think and considered what I would like to be doing, where I would like to be and the things that are important to me. By no means have I come up with the answers to all of those things yet but I have been challenged to come to reality with where I am at in the different areas of life and am in a position to approach this adventure with confidence and humility. I have spent a good deal of time trying to determine if a career in real estate is something I am passionate about. Some of the reading I have been doing, Dave Ramsey in particular, has made me think hard about passion. I believe that the ideal career is working in something you are/can be passionate about. During my internship I don't think I was ever at a point of being passionate about the work I was doing. It was big corporate and I felt disconnected from the end result and the vision of what we were doing. Hopefully some of that was being an intern and not having the same level of responsibility of an analyst. I'm not sure... I will probably be thinking about that for a while. "Life is full of ups and downs for everyone, it is much better to enjoy the journey than wish for something better"

Day Two

First off I know I wrote the blog about routines last Thursday but I don't included weekend nights in those routines. Well today was my second day of my new position with the Acquisitions & Dispositions department of Principal Real Estate, Basically this is the group that purchases new properties for our Asset Management group to manage and sells properties when there is a need. This has been a very interesting transition since I was used to working for 12-16 people on a pretty consistent basis and now I'm working with 5, maybe even more like 3, I'm not quite sure yet. The people have been pretty good so far I just hope that I can pick things up quickly enough to start helping them and actually doing a good job. I only have to make it through tomorrow and I am done working for this week as well since I am flying out to Colorado on Thursday morning with some friends to go see some friends and do some skiing. Other than work things have been going pretty well. My living situation has changed quite a bit since one of my roommates got married and another one moved out. But one of my other friends has moved in so now we have 4 of us. We have really taken on the spirit of "resolution" and all of the roommates have been pretty active in working out and trying to eat healthier for about two weeks. It is actually pretty fun when everyone is doing it. Ian, who just moved in, has been very into lifting and exercise for a while so this is nothing new to him but the rest of us had not been doing so well since the end of the summer. I think being consistent with exercise is very important and doesn't get enough credit for how much it can affect people mentally and emotionally besides just physically. I feel much more accomplished when I make it to the gym and I get excited for the next time I get to play a sport because I feel like I will be in better shape and be able to enjoy it more. Also it is sure a get stress relief, all of us have been going after work and I think that has been very good because we are able to leave work behind by the time we are home. Something that I have been thinking about recently is people keeping their word. It is something that has been very frustrating to me lately. So many people my age are quick to say yes to things or maybe or they think they will do it instead of just putting a hard yes or no on things. It makes life much more difficult. I'm not saying there isn't any room for maybe, or let me think about it. I'm just saying that a lot of people I have been around don't do a good job of actually following through with what they say. I think it has been a good lesson for me because I have been trying harder to be a man of my word. ) This summer I read an article put together by someone in our corporate leadership and development (blah blah blah) department. It was something like 50 ways to develop better relationships. I think almost all of the important things in life come from relationships so I was quick to read her article. This is one of the "50 ways" that stuck out to me. "Keep your word. If you say you'll do something, do it! Breaking your word breaks trust, faith and confidence. You ability to create powerful connections depends on you keeping your word."

Routines

Yesterday I read an article about routines and the value of having routines. I truly enjoyed that article and I think there is a lot of value in what the author wrote. His basic point was that "If you have routines to begin and end your days you will be much more productive and the days will be easier" also with routines you can work on being consistent in the things that are important to you exercise, reading, quiet time, etc. I like to blog because it has a positive impact on my thinking and processing of my life and the events that are shaping it. There is value in routines because routines require discipline, which is one of the defining factors of men of value. There is so much to do and opportunities are vast these days which can make it difficult to stay focused on the things that matter to you. Discipline is one of my greatest shortcomings and I have resolved to improve. I like the idea of blogging and reading to end my each day (at least week day). More to come later but I must go to bed. Goodnight.