How High Is Your Ladder?

Now that we’ve all settled in to the New Year and hopefully stopped writing 2011 on everything, sit back and think. If you were a ladder, how high would you go? Would your height depend on others? Some of you are afraid of heights, some like me, have no problem going up but coming down can pose problems. So now I’m a ladder and I’m an infinity ladder at that. I would like to think metaphorically that I will have a hard time coming down, but a little dose of reality tends to peak in every now and then.

            If I were dependent upon others to help be the rungs of my ladder, I know I’d be in serious trouble. Networking is all the buzz, social ladder and other colorful words to describe the ascension to somewhere higher we’re all trying to reach. Take a look at your social media sites, now look at your friends lists. Would you depend on the people in your list if you were job hunting? I’ve worked with people that will help you put the knife in one side of your body, then help you pull it out the other….hoping you don’t leave too much of a mess. These same people have later called asking if I had any job leads. Seriously!!!

            While climbing my ladder, I did it knowing one day the rungs could come apart as I got closer to the top. When it happened, I wasn’t shocked; I needed a break at the time. What I was shocked by was the number of calls from people looking for work. The same that never spoke up on the worksite now wanted something from me.  My ladder has turned into a full grate, I’m easy to find all over the internet. In my mind, I’m a social media expert, a Smartphone aficionado, lover of Android platform. So what does this all mean????

            My ladder may be a full grate that’s infinity; however I’m not the ladder. I’m the leader, that’s right the leader. See, for me trying to climb a ladder created the rungs for other people to walk and each rung they walked up pushed me down. Damn when you hit bottom, you have to realize you allowed it to happen. That took a while to sink in. I’ve had to quiet the noise on my social page and pick and choose where I post. Cultivating yourself takes great effort and the noise you allow to permeate your networks can make you or break you. It’s not hard to pick which site to post to, my social list is pretty different from site to site. Since a lot of you follow me from site to site, you figure out the differences in my postings.

            Maybe I could have titled this “The Metaphor of a Ladder”, it would have worked. Think about yourself, how high is your ladder? Are you really a ladder or a leader? Is it possible to be both? Ahhh, good question, it’s very possible to be both; it’s hard to be functional with optimal output as both. Once you get the cobwebs cleaned out, throw away the junk and turn down the noise, you will hear something….the walking stick of a leader. How do I know I’m a damn good leader? You’re following me right now aren’t you?  Just my two cents