Be The Pigeon

I'd like to share a concept a friend at work taught me a while back. It's really stuck with me as one of those "life lessons." He calls it The Posse. You all know what a posse is. Most often we associate it with the Sheriff, or perhaps the Old West. I think of the posse as that group of men in Tombstone days who the sheriff called when someone needed help or a bad guy needed catching. These men came from many different walks of life, but when duty called, THEY RODE. It didn't matter if funding was available, if guyA was friends with guyB, etc. They simply rode when there was a need. Life isn't all that different today. We all have events in our lives and in the lives of those near and dear that require the posse to ride. In a career sense, having a posse is SO important. It's via your network and friends that the real work so often gets done. One thing I've learned in my job is the great value of that posse, and how the good old mantra ...

NOTE: Pictures are forthcoming for this post! I'll repost when I have them. People measure success by many different methods in life. For me, success is partially measured in surprising my wife at her birthday with something that she actually likes. You see, this is somewhat of a holy grail for me. My track record ain't that hot. I am not the most creative gift giver (I actually am in heavy competition with the least-creative people), and my abilities to plan 364 days ahead and strategically think of things many months before the actual date is, well, absent. Hats off to the women who do that so well. I am genetically predisposed to not do that. So Jolayne had " the " birthday last week. You know, " the " birthday that most folks dread. She took it really well, actually; a model of someone who isn't caught up in the pop-culture that says age is defining. Way to go. I've been thinking for months about what I could do to surprise her and mak...