Growing Up Part 2

I realized I must grow up on Sat Oct 4, 2008. I was in Los Altos walking to my car from an arts festival. The lessons I learned and the changes I completed were immediate and impacted my life. Some of the big lessons I learned included:

*Grow up. I'm an adult. Stop acting naive and being a child.
*Don't take life for granted. I did take life for granted. Nothing bad was going to happen in my life. I was an all-star. I was successful and I didn't need to work hard.
*Earn it. I learned this lesson the hard way. Schools didn't teach it to me. I must earn it to get it.

Here are some of the changes:

*Read fiction books. I read non-fiction books including business, self-help, and investments. I learned more about life reading fiction books than non-fiction.
*New clothes. Goodbye to polo shirts and sweaters. I purchased new sports shirts, jackets, and outdoor clothing for hiking.
*New gym workout. I downloaded workout schedules from Bodybuilding.com.

I experienced another grow up moment on Wed Nov 7, 2012. I was in Mountain View interviewing for a contract analyst position. The employees inside the building were loose, joking around, having fun, smiling, socializing, yet there were professional and mature. Nobody complained. Nobody was a jerk, a bitch, and an asshole.

The employees were friendly everywhere I walked including the outside entrance, lunch tables, and the bathroom. A few greeted me and asked how I was doing. It was like everyone was interviewing me to see how I acted and behaved. They were asking the question, "Is this an employee I'm comfortable having a beer with?" The beer test never fails.

The lesson I learned is personality. Begin in a friendly way. Smile. Shake hands when greeting new people and congratulating people. Look at their cute faces when communicating. The employees all had positive, cheerful, kindness, joyful personalities. I believe a good person has a good personality who socializes and communicates. The employees set the bar for me to achieve.

I have been improving my personality since Nov 7 which has been paying off. For instance, my girlfriend and I were shopping at Best Buy. I small talked with an assistant manager for 10 minutes as he prepared for Black Friday. We had a good conversation about Black Friday, movies, and television shows. I ended saying I let him get back to work, said my name, and shook his hand. That's a good example of meeting new people.

There is a new change in my life following the personality lesson. The change is business on Mon-Fri and pleasure on Sat and Sun. I'm approaching the chapter in my life when my playtime is over*. I concentrate on job searching, learning new job skills, working out at the gym, doing the house chores more often, cooking more delicious and healthy foods . . . essentially my weekdays are like working at a job. My weekends are pleasure days.

I elaborate more about my Growing Up Part 2 blog at my Finding Raymond Mar blog The State Of Raymond Mar.

*Read my blog "Chapter N: Playtime Is Over" here.