Patty DeDominic on Change

Are you Ready to do a 180?

Or Maybe even a 360?

We adopted a new dog named Tessa.

That's her on the left in mid flight after she realized that the big pooch up on the hill was not a dog but a horse. It's one of my favorite photos and I just love that we caught her as she did her 180!

Tessa had been spending a lot of time lately pacing back and forth in front of the corral. Her human "mom" died and we gave her a new home. Everything changed for her and it took a while before she was feeling good. New environment, new species and plenty more visitors than before. When the gate is closed she barks up a storm and acts as if she is the toughest dog around.Most everyone backs off, can you blame them? But really inside she was covering up her fear of being unsure of herself in unfamiliar surroundings over which she had no control. Funny thing happens when I let her in and she gets to run with Perry, the black retriever and Indy the mini horse; she calms right down.

Lots of people are doing a lot of huffing and puffing right now.

They remind me of what Tessa must be feeling and thinking when she sees something new on the other side of the fence:

"SCARY" and "Let me put up a good front!"

Are there parallels between what Tessa feels and what we are feeling as we stare into the news of hundreds of thousands of layoffs and corporate closures every day?

Make no mistake about it, we are entering the Great Jobs Crash of 2009.

We're all in this together in one way or another.

It's a whole NEW New World of Work and new ways people are compensated for their time and productivity.

Things will calm down but it can take some time and you may do a few 360's!

Please forgive me for making a correlation with my dog. I mean no disrespect to you, I just want to make a point that most of us can all relate to.

Once Tessa enters the "new world", the heretofore unknown, the slightly dusty corral she realises that it's just a few steps past where she was safe a minute ago.

Soon she begins to have fun and she is doing what any three year old "puppy" loves to do and that's play. While the environment and the friends are new..... everything that has carried her till now is still working just in different ways.

It may be a bit dusty but she soon found her sea legs. Tessa did a 180!

That's the point of this missive today.... First to give you a smile as you see the "kids" playing and secondly to give you a lift if you were wondering if you were going to figure out this crazy market. No doubt we are in challenging times...different than any I have experienced in my decades long career.

You, however are a Survivor and you're reaching out for answers and insight. If you have been feeling a little rocky lately, you too will soon find your Sea Legs....or your Walking Shoes or your MBTs or whatever you need to move forward in constructive ways.

You don't need to be Nike to Just Do IT, you can as a mere mortal put one foot in front of the other and move forward.

You might do a 180 or even a 360 but the skills and values that brought you here will carry you on into the future. You learned as you grew....and if you will continue to learn you will continue to grow.

Each of us need to make constructive changes to our skill sets and to our networks each and every month.

We need to change the way we learn, the way we stay connected to people we care about and in many cases, the way we earn our living.

Some things will never change..... the need for values, for resiliency and flexibility, the joy of curiosity and humor and the importance of hard work based on solid foundations and education. But the world around us has changed and the great Jobs Crash of 2009 has begun.

In order to turn survival into thriving we will need exposure to all types professional people,to niche experts and their perspectives. We need to learn from the best and we need also to share our learnings with others.

Information and Understanding are the currency of the future.

New technologies have already created intense, worldwide competition.

We can bark ferociously at the changes before us or we can harness our personal waves of change and enjoy the 180* ride of our lifetimes!