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The End?
Folks, since getting back from all those vacations I took over the summer, and not doing 5 a Day With Jay during that time, I’ve done a LOT of thinking about it. Mainly stopping doing it.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I still enjoy making the videos and chit chatting with everyone, even if there isn’t any chit chat back. If I didn’t enjoy making the videos and doing this blog, I’d stop in a heartbeat. Why keep doing something if you’re not enjoying yourself?
What it comes down to is fairly simple.
Time.
There aren’t enough hours in the day. Currently I’m getting up early for work because we’re losing another team member. One of the senior team members. Losing him will be a challenge. We have calls that start at 6am (my time as he’s on the East Coast) so we can start transferring his duties to others on the team. We also record those sessions as he won’t be around for questions and we’ll need some sort of knowledge base to deal with everything once he’s gone.
That’s put a lot of stress on me as my boss also left the company. Currently, I’m the one running the team until the replacement takes over. That person will be starting next month. This means on top of getting people on the team up to speed on the person leaving, I need to get the new supervisor up to speed on everything that’s happening with the team currently as well as giving him a history of what the team has been up to getting to this point in time.
It’s a lot to deal with.
When I posted last night that I was tired, I was. Mentally completely exhausted. I always said I’d be transparent with this blog and the video series. My goal is not to ghost you any more. I also want to keep blogging daily as it helps me keep my mind clear.
That all said, I’m going to stop 5 a Day With Jay for the time being. I do plan on switching to a weekly format, perhaps 30-45 minutes. I don’t want to stop making the videos, but I cannot keep doing 5 a week as I once was. There just aren’t enough hours in the day right now. I’m falling behind on my writing, my bass practice, and my reading. Yes, I love doing the videos, but something needs to be cut to help me get back on track.
I will keep doing the blog. I’m having fun writing these up every day and now that I’m telling stories from my past, perhaps they’ll even be more interesting. My overall goal is to make this a blog worth coming to and reading and not just me posting random ramblings.
That’s all I’ve got today. Over the coming weeks, things will start to lighten up around here. I’m glad you’re here and I hope you’ll stick around.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Slow Boil.
A few things tonight.
First off, I spoke with my co-author, Mike Plested, and we’re ready to get started on Jack Kane Book 3. No title as of yet.
We do know some things. We know where the story will start. We also know where the story will end. Much like a Rubik’s Cube, what we don’t know, yet, are all the steps in the middle that will get us from that beginning to that end. Oh, we know some movements. Much like solving a cube, there are certain patterns and known situations. It’s a matter of doing all the right movements and seeing where that brings us next to know what we’ll be doing next. Until we get to that point, we won’t know.
What we’ll know is when the book is done. Much like the cube, there are infinite possibilities to get from a start to an end, but you always know the start, sometimes, you know the end.
Next, Haircut is doing well. I’m honestly surprised. I’ve sold 5 copies compared to the 0 I’ve sold of GRPC2. I expected the latter, I’m surprised at the former. I had thought I’d sell exactly 0 copies of Haircut as well. Not only did I sell copies, I got a 5 star review on the same day. I’m floored.
I’ve said all along, I’m not expecting much in the first couple of months as I get this all started. I’m going slow. Yes, I’m posting all over every platform that I can, but my followings are small. Time. A fraction of what they were when I was podcasting back in the Hey Day of podcasting. It’s going to take time to rebuild. I’m going in expecting this to be slow and I’m ready for it to take time.
If you’re watching the videos, I’m trying out my GoPro as a WebCam. Let me know how it looks.
Finally, My boss announced that he’s quitting. Retiring, really, but he’s leaving the company. He’ll be gone in 3 weeks. Though not entirely unexpected, it’s surprising. Everything he’s had in motion personally, he’s been getting ready for this moment and it jumping while he can.
That said, I’ve been working very closely with him over the past couple of years. We meet twice a week and go over nearly everything the team is working on. We’ll discuss things at length. I know all the moving parts of the team.
But I’ve never been in a leadership position before. Even so, I’ll be applying to be his replacement. This is scary AF. I doubt I’ll get the position for a variety of reasons, but going through the interview process will be enlightening. If I even get that far.
I’ll need to reach out to his boss and find out.
I’ve been in a similar situation before. I took leadership mentoring. Did tons of leadership courses. I’ve got all that behind me. Only thing I don’t have is practical experience. With a team like ours, it might not be wise to put an unproven leader into that position. Cybersecurity is no joke.
We shall see. I’ll keep you posted.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Audio Only: https://anchor.fm/jr-murdock/episodes/5-a-Day-With-Jay—0135-e10rlpj
J.R. Murdock 