Change.  It could be classified as an irritant, and it can be classified as a help.  It certainly puts itself right smack dab in the middle of any choices you make as if it had all the trimmings for your journey in life.  You are flowing along, things are working well, and then BOOM - a change comes mighty and stubborn setting itself in your path like a nice giant boulder.  Now you can be the one pushing the boulder or be on the other side and get crushed, I'd like to think this little change could be initiated by myself, but alas, most of the time when I have gotten comfortable with the status quo, and I have layed out my choices and power changing momentum, someone decides it might be nice to throw in a little wrinkle in my environment, in my day to day, in an email, or a wonderful tax request, or a procedure that is changed because it isn't working, but you know better and think - actually it is.

These are just a few of the examples.  I was very pointed in my desires this past week to just have everything go the way I wished it, but try as I might, there are little bumps and random things which just made me sit back and scratch my head and think "Why the heck did THAT happen?"  Ugg, it's just the momentous change that decides to plant itself right there in my way when I least expect it.  Why can't it just come about in a way that is predictable?  I have to wonder why such things come in bunches.  After an 8 hire month I thought - WOW I'm actually doing very well, and then a week where I had no hires and just wanted to feel the momentum come back again, but with so many things, in life, business, family, etc, it just can't be.  So I was positioned this week to just think - How can I get a continuous rythym when everything seems to be just rolling along and then with the rug pulled out - how can I get back in to the consistency that gave me my direction.  Simple - the advice that so often is needed is - be a duck.  YES A DUCK.  A duck let's the water flow off their back, plain and simple - they don't require a lot of maintenance. 

As I felt the changes come in 2009, which moved me away from one of the best places I have had privilege to ever hang my hat, I couldn't help but wonder - how did I even get here?  Solutions Partners - a home away from home, a place where I came into my own with all the needed components I had searched for since graduating college - it was an economic maelstrom that changed everything.

But I cannot be less than grateful.  Solutions Partners was but one stop on a series of lessons needed to be learned - namely, that I can take back what the economy took, by yielding within myself the greatest passion and allowing the change to come but to stay true to myself in the midst.  This is perhaps one of life's greatest lessons.  In 2010 - same thing I had taken a couple of temporary jobs on my journey along the economic wave, but had I not gone through such character building moments, then I would not be where I am today.

So I joined netPolarity - the past weeks have brought more changes - a restructuring, and a new baby - all changes so quick and crazy that everything that defined me before is now recycled, and strange as it is, I have to adapt and require myself to be more open minded than ever before.  Such a pursuit has not been easy, but the changes are positive but not without their challenges. 

When life throws you a change, it may be something that needs to be pursued with complete fidelity and passion.  In my 7 years of HR experience, the GREATEST lesson has been and continues to be as I learn it in new and ever expanding ways, that to let change roll off your back like a duck, will be the greatest professional lesson anyone can learn.

So as I write about a week where I had to be re-taught once again, that it is OKAY to experience a wake up call or two, as you encounter a crazy or otherwise new CHANGE.  Be it a new baby, a new redefinition of your job and career, or whether it is your workplace transforming around you, even when you are not ready to embrace it, and yet you find yourself blessed by it, well that is the time you awaken to the possibilities you don't readily understand.

I look forward in 2011 as a year that will CHANGE me, irregardless of any outcome, how can I remain at the top of my game - when challenges seem like large mountains on the front side of my desired outcome, it is then that life opens a new window, not before seen, which opens the rays of sunshine to your soul.

A career, a life, a dream, comes about from proposed, or un-planned change, it is how you react to it that makes the man or woman.  It is certainly one of the most important lessons of our time.  How do you redefine yourself to let that change become a part of you. 

Dale Carnegie wrote so purely about living in day tight compartments, this advice has stuck with me for a large portion of my career.  So important is that advice to live in the NOW, and see the change for it's positive and negative affects, how can one prosper when the whole world says it is not possible?  Well it comes of an inward commitment to an outward dream, there is only one way forward, and that is to succeed in SPITE of anything thrown at you.

At the end of the day, what separates your prowess from your inner direction is the option of embracing a change however difficult, and turning the change into the most incredible outcome imagineable.  Taking control of the circumstances, that is what it is all about. 

It trully is the center of success, that is CHANGE.  The key is in your attitude and maintaining a balance and perspective as the world clamors to push you in different directions - it is up to the changes and powers that be, but it is so important to live so that CHANGE is not a limiting factor but a liberating one.  It just takes one positive change to make a difference.  That key is desire and hope.  That is the essence of being able to make a positive and incredible change the centerpeice of your success.  One should never doubt what is possible within themselves when they put their minds to the application of embracing change, vs. ignoring or running from it.  The Golden Endeavor is to imprint the change with an enthusiasm of purpose.  Nothing else makes success that much more real as the realization of change, and the purpose of it's application, that is trully one of the most motivating and important impacts of a firmly embraced and confident change.  A little can go a long way.