Non-market musings

Sorry, gang, this is another of my philosophical musings based on what is happening in real life.  If you just want market comments, you will have to wait until after Thanksgiving.

Yes, everyone likes to put out a seasonal blog post on giving thanks and sharing what the holiday means to them. Some don't even talk about buying the day before Thanksgiving and selling the following Monday.   :-)

I work in a home office most of the time and as you can imagine life creeps into the business day. Of course, the business day does it fair share of encroachment on life, too, such as writing an article after dinner and before Monday Night Football kicks off - while the kids need shuttling to after-school activities.  Today, I had to hang around the house while workers installed new shower doors in the bathroom.

So, I am in earshot, trying to catch up on emails and following up on presentations. Planning for future events and marketing initiatives is a full time job by itself.

After a few hours of trying to tune out the drilling and banging emanating from the bathroom, something amazing started to happen. Several of the seeds I had sown weeks, months and even years ago suddenly came back to me as live opportunities.

The guy I have been after for possibly four years on a firm-wide research deal passed my latest proposal off to an underling who contacted me to get started.

An organization with tens of thousands of members wants an article for their magazine.

Two different organizations added me to their list of guest bloggers.

No contracts yet but I got a healthy dose of encouragement. Keep plugging. Some days absolutely suck and maybe one quarter of the time I feel like I am moving backwards let alone merely stuck in the mud. But as someone said - maybe it was even a cartoon I saw years ago - if your don't ask, you don't get. The NY lottery says, "you have to be in it to win it."

Keep yourself in it. Keep asking. Keep working and something will happen. It may not be exactly what you planned but opportunities are everywhere - under rocks, behind trees and sometimes at the bottom of a steaming pile of poo.

What's the alternative? Giving up? Whining about the economy? Blaming someone else?

I'll close with this quote from a technical analysis chat room posted by my favorite re-tweeter Alex Spiroglou:

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career.
I've lost almost 300 games.
26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.
I've failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan

A Happy Thanksgiving to all!