J.D. Antell's Professional Dog Walking Blog

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. ”
- Andre Gide

As the unemployment rate reaches new heights, and probably is in reality somewhere near 20% if you include those who are out of work and off the unemployment rolls, we must come to a sobering realization. We aren’t living in the 90s anymore. Things have changed. The president’s State of The Union address provided no comfort to me, and he seemed to miss the point the American people were trying to send when they elected Scott Brown (or willfully ignored it). We don’t want to be dragged into deeper and deeper national debt, we want our free market to be allowed to correct itself without the interference of our government. It was bad government programs that got us into this mess, and it’s going to be more bad programs that will keep us here. This further reinforces my belief that our country will recover by the will of it’s people. Americans are a tenacious people, we will find a way.

Indeed they have. Many of the people I’ve spoken to are turning to small business entrepreneurship and are presently unemployed, outsourced, laid-off, down-sized, etc. Whatever you want to call it, it’s not good news, but not all that comes from difficult times is bad. There are always opportunities for progress. Obviously not everyone who loses his/her job is going to become a small business owner, but for many, it’s a great opportunity to explore something you might have been too afraid to consider up until now.

With the economic down-turn business prospects aren’t what they used to be. One needs much more savvy, more information and a bit more will to succeed. Let’s face it, we can’t afford to make too many mistakes anymore, either as country, or as individuals. The economy isn’t as forgiving as it once was. If you find yourself unemployed presently and think a small business might be your ticket, then you should spend the valuable time you have now doing as much research as you can. If you’re thinking about a dog walking business, then talk to other dog walkers, read about the industry, buy some books and get to work. Dog walking, like any other business, will have it’s challenges during this economic down-turn, but as a whole, dog walking businesses are here to stay and are still growing every year. It’s a great first business to try, it doesn’t take long to set up, nor does it take much capital.

The opportunity that exists for the unemployed is that you have been set adrift. You are no longer hanging onto the shore. If you were unhappy at your previous mooring, perhaps it’s time to consider what lays beyond the bar.

With all that is going on in the world right now, I think it’s an appropriate time to discuss mental “fitness” and dealing with emotional states that can be triggered by the headlines we read on a daily basis. Starting a business is no easy thing, and it can be herculean in an economy like the one we’re in right now. I stumbled across an article on Fox News about military jobs, and found it interesting that they are employing the use of “positive psychology” for their enlisted, reserve, and civilian members.

I’ve always been very proud of our military and the sacrifices they make on our behalf, regardless of the political party in control of the White House. Being a volunteer member of the USCG-AUX I have a great appreciation for what it takes to serve and risk your life for your fellow countrymen (and women).

I’ve found the training programs I’ve been through to be superior in many ways to the civilian and college educational programs I’ve attended over the years. I currently hold a BS degree from Rochester Institute of Technology, NY. That said, finding that the US Army is employing the use of “positive psychology” developed by Dr. Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania got my attention.

The military is VERY picky about the content of their education and training. So the mere fact that they are using this psychological technology is enough for me to want to investigate. So often such technology is filled with useless, irrelevant, or regurgitated information, with little or no actionable, useful information. Books in the “self-help” genre are more often than not, drivel.

I can speak from experience when I say that beating on a pillow with a tennis racket while imagining the face of someone who allegedly did you harm at some time in your life is not only useless, but probably harmful to your psych. Rather than negatively rehashing the past (all the bad things that have been done to you), advocating “escapism or displacement” (leave your spouse, tell your father off, quit your job), the University of Pennsylvania program focuses on building your sense of well-being through positive and enriching concepts.

Fostering such things as:  “strengths and virtues … the capacity for love and work, courage, compassion, resilience, creativity, curiosity, integrity, self-knowledge, moderation, self-control, and wisdom.” People rarely talk about moderation, self-control, and integrity with much enthusiasm these days, and yet they had been a mainstay of our highly successful culture for hundreds of years. Maybe it’s time to reread the Scouts motto…

“Positive Psychology has three central concerns: positive emotions, positive individual traits, and positive institutions. Understanding positive emotions entails the study of contentment with the past, happiness in the present, and hope for the future.”

You can bet I am going to be looking into this more closely. Nobody is a superhero. We all feel down, sad, or hopeless some times. Being your own boss requires discipline, moderation, self-control, and wisdom. Not just the functional kind, but the mental kind as well. We must be able to endure set-backs and move forward with our dreams. We must be able to take a positive attitude about difficulties and for many of us, we just don’t have a good template for accomplishing this. We either never learned how, or we have achieved mixed results from our efforts and have given up.

I cannot endorse this technology because I haven’t used it yet, but I will say that if it’s good enough for our soldiers, it’s probably darn good, and worth a look. Nobody is under more stress than they are. Keep them in your prayers.

Resources used in writing this post:

The Positive Psychology Center

Fox News Story