What to do next?

So “it” isn’t what you thought it would be?

This can be in relation to your job, life, or pretty much anything. For me it’s the job and my relationship with my girlfriend Kellye.

Let me start out by saying this is not a bad thing by any means. This was a growing experience for me.

I originally set out in this entry to write about how unhappy and unfulfilling my job was, and how tough it is to be in a relationship with my girlfriend, Kellye. After further thought and significant events, I found some very insightful facts about myself.

I was so unhappy, unfulfilled, and slowly mentally deteriorating that I was allowing my job and current employer to effect the rest of my life. I knew I was stressed out from work, but not to the level I thought. I thought I was drinking more just because it was fun to do with Kellye. We were having nice dinners together along with a glass of wine, beer, or a Jonny on the rocks. I though we were fighting more because I was unhappy with the relationship as a whole. We went to counseling, sought outside help, talked with friends and family. Nothing seemed to be helping.

Nothing was working, because I wasn’t addressing the real issue. It was work. I love my work. It is part of my biological chemistry and childhood upbringing to be the best at whatever I call a career. The fact that I had left a very comfortable job with the Three Value Logic Sales Institute for another less satisfying job was killing me.

The first month at Internet Alliance Group was great. I was implementing Salesforce.com, getting others up-to-speed on its functionality, writing user manuals, and selling. It was everything I had agreed it to be.

About 45 days into the job, we had a sales meeting. The owner came in, started talking about this, that, and the other thing like he usually did (which typically made no sense and all I wanted to do was contradict him the whole time). He went on to eventually say, “I don’t want a huge company with 30 employees, dot, dot, dot.” At that point my heart was crushed, all expectations had been broken, and agreements flushed down the toilet. The goal of building a sales team for the different parts of the business was no longer. He was only out to make a quick buck. For the remaining 2 – 3 months I was there, the entire sales team (myself included), completely switched selling products 3 – 4 times. If you do the math, we were only given a matter of weeks to build a prospect list, sell into that, build a pipeline, and close business. It was so backwards it drove everyone crazy.

As a professional out to be ubber successful and make an enormous amount of money, I was becoming very resentful, unmotivated, disinterested, unbelieving, etc in the small company of 8 – 10 employees.

All of this and about 20 more pages worth of detail was ruining me. It was affecting the way I was treating others, especially my wonderful girlfriend.

I started interviewing with the hopes of walking into the owners office and putting in my 2 weeks notice…but he beat me to the punch line.

Even though a bit upsetting it wasn’t me leaving on my own ticket, that was a great day.

Since the day I left, my life, wellbeing, and relationships have all been exponentially better. Funny enough, I received a job offer from a real company for more money only 2 days out of a job and another for a lot more money 4 days out of a job. Funny how that works.

To sum it all up, everything happens for a reason. I left 3VLSI for reason, took a job with IAG for a reason, and now am sitting here typing all for a reason.

I look back on my work at 3VLSI and all the meetings we had with prospects and clients. What happened at IAG was no different. Setting agreements and expectations is not too difficult. Clarification, keeping, and living up to them are the tough part for most.

Good luck.

Robert Johnson