I am a networking miracle. I did not go to college with the idea of being in the profession that I'm in. I was gonna be a teacher and a coach, and I had a campus employment job that turned into from a student worker that turned into being employed and changing my major at the last minute being employed in my first job. That has led me throughout a career that have now worked at six different institutions. I've only truly applied for one job in my entire career and through professional development, professional interaction, networking with people in a variety of different ways. Eyes exposed me and open open doors and opportunities to me at other places that you end up finding out. And so it's led me to do a lot of speaking in particular about networking. I think the power of networking is highly underrated. I think is something that needs to be taught Maurin schools and high schools and in colleges, because you can gain all the knowledge in the world on B uh, certainly successful in your field. But, uh, in the competitive environment we live in today, having doors open to you is critical. I tell people all the time I get lots of resumes that come across my desk for a variety of different positions, and people will try to use fancy fonts or spray perfume on a resume or anything to get attention. But what gets my attention, really is somebody contacting me and saying, Hey, you need to talk to Todd or he's somebody that would be worthwhile you to talk to and I tell people all the time I can't get anyone a job, But I can open a door for them and getting access to hiring managers. Eyes really, really a big part of the whole networking process. So that is in a condensed version, is my is my story. Uh, every story, every step I've taken in my career has been due to somebody knowing somebody else, and that's why they decided to give me a chance to interview my resume in many respects, doesn't look any better than anyone else's, isn't any more impressive than somebody else's. But when you have an opportunity that then get yourself in front of people, they can see your personality, your energy, they can hearme or about all the things that you have accomplished that you just can't put in a one or two page resume. So those are incidents I have through networking have identified some unbelievable mentors who have helped me understand the importance of staff evaluations have made me understand the importance of networking have made me understand the importance of communication on DSO. As you go through this process of building a network, it's also really important, uh, to use it to help identify mentors who can help you throughout life is well.

you know, my responsibilities entail variety of different things. They recreate. They require me to have some marketing skills, communication skills, the ability to manage staffs and manage budgets. Um, one of the things that I tell my young staff all the time is that one you never know when opportunities they're gonna arise. You never know when somebody's gonna leave, and there's immediate opportunity for you to advance or growing an organization. So you always have to be prepared. Many times. People they're starting in their careers, they're getting good experience. But most of the time is I see people that one of advance, they don't have any budget or managerial experience. And so whatever field you're in, if you can volunteer and seek out opportunities to manage a student worker or manage some aspect of the organization, and also even if it's just managing a small budget, uh, we live in a world today where most people don't reconcile their checkbooks anymore. Uh, they're not. They're just spending what's in in their bank accounts and using their debit cards. But when you get in and and move up in a managerial position, managing a budget and being able to prepare a budget for the following year, show about return on investment but then also managing. So in my case, I have territory sales managers. And so what I have done is taken a large budget that everybody spin out of and divided it up. So where each sales manager has their own territory budget so they'll be able to go to an interview and say, Yes, I've managed $2000 or yes, I've managed $6000 and I had to make decisions on where did the drive or fly and where to stay and how to use that That budget as I go through that So my top priorities are are making sure that I manage people as individuals. Um, it's very easy to have across the board rules and manage everybody by one set of rules. That's the easiest way to manage. But that's not the world we live in. We live in a world where people are Children or people are taking care of older parents or people, maybe have multiple jobs, and we have to be a manager's understanding that that we have to treat people as individuals and manage them as individuals. which requires more time. So that's one of my top priorities is to make sure that I'm providing the mentorship and the feedback and the resource is for to help my staff grow. I think one of the things that's really important for young people to understand is I'm lucky if I keep half of my staff, the other staff. I don't have opportunities for everybody to advance in the an organization. And so what I really try to do is to provide leadership and mentorship to my staff to prepare them for their next job. And that may be with me, and it may be somewhere else. But I take Justus much pride in somebody advancing their career, even if it means having to leave my organization. So, uh, staff development is a big part of my job managing. Looking to the future. I think that many times Aziz we we come into an organization. We get caught up with the things that were asked to do, and sometimes we forget. Bosses forget sometimes all the things that are on an employee's, uh, set of priorities and things to do. At the same time, I think employees don't really take a look at what all my boss has on their plate, and I think we have to be understanding of that. Azzawi go through the process to make sure that we're being cognizant what all they have on their plate, what can what can you do to take care of some things so it doesn't rise to their level? But I also know that ultimately we're working to better the organization and provide opportunities for people. Um, my weekly work hours are not untypical. I don't think that there's very many positions that air just 40 hours a week anymore. Uh, I think there are. There are certainly times when you're lucky to get off with just 40 but many times it's 50 or 60 hours. Um, you know, I certainly believe that it's important for us. Toe have work. Life balance is in today's world. So you certainly need to make time for yourself and your family, and you can't be all about work at the same time. I think that sometimes we're naive to believe that you're only gonna work 40 hours a week. Um and so I think you need to go into this knowing that um, you do. We live in a world now where Mawr and Mawr and in the Cove In world we live in more and more people are working from home, and so they may be doing their work at a variety of different times during the day, and it may not be the typical 8 to 5 job anymore. But then I also think we need to understand that as we work more and more from home, where me is a manager and not ableto walk around and hear and see what people are doing, it's even more critical for you to follow whatever data management kinds of stuff that people have because we're living in a world now where the on leeway is is a manager that I know. Whether people are getting truly getting their work done is to see what they're in putting into the systems that we have. So putting notes in the system order a chronological order of of what they're achieving, what they're accomplishing, what they're checking off of their list. What are they still working on? It's gonna be more critical for us to do that follow up, which is not fun. It's not something that people always want to do. But if you want to show people the return on the investment for the work you're doing, you're gonna have to be more adept at tracking all that information.

so I don't I don't look at things is being pain points or I don't look at that. Things is being challenges. I think everything that comes our way in life is a learning experience. I think we learned from making mistakes that you don't make the same mistake twice. We learn from uncomfortable situations. We learned by putting ourself in positions to gain knowledge about something that we don't know about. So I don't look this thing at things as failures or disappointments. I looked at them is learning opportunities, and so you go through through a work life and I think the challenges you have are certainly managing people who have many other things going on in their life. And, um, it's easy to say, Don't bring your work, your life, your personal life, toe work. And don't take your work, work life home. But very few people are able to truly divide those things, and so if people have things going on in their personal life, they're gonna be bringing an end work and kind of creating an environment. So where people know and where you have the intangibles and people know that you care about them um, you know, ultimately, when it really comes down to it, if you look at incentives and what people appreciate, people appreciate first and foremost to be compensated for their work. Now the reality of it is nobody believes that they're being paid what they're truly worth. But after you get past that, then as a manager, then I think you looking for what other things can I provide that people might value So a little more laxed work environment where people can come and go to pick up their kids from school, run an errand during the day? Um uh, making sure that you're walking around talking to people and understanding what you can about their lives, what they're willing to share with you but just want them to know that there's a compassionate work environment on that might make the difference sometimes between the trade offs. Usually the more money you make, the more demands there are on your time and on your and on your outcomes and eso. Sometimes those trade offs are not always always worth it. But I think some challenges that I deal with are all related in my opinion, to communication. I think if we communicate and talk to each other. I think invariably what happens in work environments is people here one little bit of piece of information, but they don't have all the information. And so then they react or overreact to something that they're making assumptions about rather than knowing the truth thing. As I tell my staff, if I have personnel related things to deal with, what's when somebody then you will never know as untiring staff? What happened? You're not going to hear a door slam, you're not gonna hear me yell at anybody. Uh, it's gonna be a very personal situation between the employee and I. And so if that's what you're looking for, is to see retribution or see people called on the carpet. I don't believe that's the right environment to create. Uh, but at the same time, I think before jumping to conclusions about what you think if you're being if you believe you're being, um uh, disrespected in some way before you jump to those conclusions is make sure you communicate. I always tell people don't bring something to me until you've talked to the person first that you have the issue with tryto work it out amongst yourself. That's the best scenario and figure out if you've been communicating correctly. And if you can't then bring it to me and I certainly will sit and listen. Everybody, Aziz, you go through the process. So, um, I think I just came to my position at Mount Mercy. So some of the questions that are being posed to me right here are very appropriate because I've just seriously had them with my staff within the last week. I think the most important thing in today's world that people can be students as you're moving into new jobs is you have to be adaptable. You have to be flexible on you have to be tolerant and understanding. Um, we're living in an environment where people are moving around all the time, and it's not just very seldom do you run into somebody like your grand parents or maybe your parents who possibly have worked at a job the same job for 40 years. Most people that life expectancy of a job is about anywhere between 5 to 7 years. You will probably have 5 to 67 different jobs in your lifetime, and you're gonna have a lot of different managers and leaders. People are moving on. Every time you have a new manager leader, they bring a different leadership style. They they prioritize things differently. And, uh, you may not fit neatly into that organization the same way you did before. And so you're gonna have to be able to adapt to those different leadership styles on those different priority settings. You're gonna have toe, maybe think about doing things in a different way. And so, being adaptable and flexible and nimble, I think you're really gonna be important as you as you go through your work life and again identifying mentors.