I Walk Alone

 

Walking Alone does not mean that there have not been accomplishments.  I earned a BA in English and an MBA with a concentration in Strategic Planning...  I am a certified WorkKeys Job Profiler by American College Testing.  I am an ISO9000 Certified Auditor by the British Standards Institute and I am an MCSE for Windows NT 4.0.  I am certified by Motorola in SIX SIGMA and certified by Ford Motor Company in QS9000 Quality Standards.  I am also certified by the State of Tennessee as a Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award Examiner.

It was all of this that enabled me to be a successful consultant for 25 years in Organizational Development, Continuous Improvement, Re-engineering Systems, and Quality Management.

Fortunately, I was able to work with NIIT out of New Delhi, India to custom-design and write all of the courses for a degree in Technical Project Management for ITT Technical Institute using the PMBOK as the core set of guiding principles around which all the courses were designed.

Walking Alone does not necessarily mean that someone cannot be successful both mentally and financially...  it just means that the path to success is unconventional...  to say the least, and oftentimes uncomfortable for the person making the journey.  Looking back on the journey is when one realizes how much was actually accomplished without anyone opening doors for you...

At the age of 40, I quit smoking after 20 years of a 2 pack a day habit...  and, did so COLD TURKEY...  I had no one there to support me other than myself.  During the first 3 months, I gained 30 pounds and during the next 6 months, I lost 30 pounds by counting my daily intake of fat grams...

I was able to accomplish this with DETERMINATION and DISCIPLINE...  I also had a positive mindset of this was exactly what I wanted to do...  and, I did it for no one but myself.

I statistically charted my results and showed the paperwork to my quality management students as proof that one could apply statistical analysis to damn near anything.  I explained to them that if I eat above the average, I gain weight and if I eat below the average I lose weight...   Each person is different, so no one could use my results but me.

I am not a wealthy person nor am I a poor person living in poverty.   I have been debt-free for over 15 years, I own my own home, and two vehicles, have a recreational space outside in the yard, and have enough money saved to pay all of my expenses for my wife and me until the age of 95.  Who wants to live past that?

In short, I have exactly what I need...

However, I leave nothing behind except my home and a few hundred thousand dollars.  No streets or buildings are named after me.  No records were left behind to be broken by others.  And, no one except my close family will miss me...  it will be about the same as when I was born.

Can you say the same about your life?