Connecting. Collaborating. Inspiring.
Has your business or professional life reached a standstill? Do you want to inject some new ideas into your company? Are you thinking of starting your own company?
Beginning your own business or changing your career can be a daunting experience for anyone. But you don’t need to feel alone in this situation. Help is out there. Professionals, just like yourself, have formed a supportive network that is readily available to all.
Jon Sween is a man who has worn many hats in his varied working life. And with each new job, he brought the skills and experience from the last job and applied them to his new position. By mid-life, he realized that there was a need in the business community for a sharing of ideas for those facing a challenging transition in their professional life.
MarketPlace Connections (MPC) was founded to support the individual wanting to develop his personal and professional career changes. This is achieved through motivational speakers at monthly meetings and promoting an environment for networking at every level of business.
MPC meets at noon on the second Friday of every month at the Edmonds Conference Center. Interesting speakers adhere to a format of “the 18-minute speech.” This means getting your point across by economizing on words so that you don’t confuse or lose your audience. These meetings are a vibrant lift for any professional. Themes vary every three months with the current theme of “Transition” demonstrating a positive career change for the individual. The audience then breaks up into discussion groups and the ensuing networking exchange of like-minded professionals begins. Because good connections matter.
I met recently with Jon Sween and his administrative assistant, Dennis S. Grainger, to further understand the mission of their organization. One cannot help but be impressed and energized by this dynamic duo. They don’t just talk a good story, they wholly believe in its implications. They have created a network of professionals in Edmonds that inspire meaningful conversations and promote positive long-term benefits to the entire business community.
MPC can jump-start your career, whatever the field. Technical support comes directly from knowledgeable leaders. These leaders reach out as mentors and acquaint you with leading professionals who can inspire and support your ideas. And personally, MPC can help a person gain confidence with psychological and emotional support, thus encouraging reliable decision-making. Help is available with value judgements as well, with an underlying spiritual element promoting fairness and ethics in the business world.
The idea of supportive teamwork in the business community is a relatively new idea, in a field where fierce competition is usually the norm. But encouraging new businesses and energizing the middle management of others results in a greater community awareness and vibrant leadership potential. MPC endeavors to create a ground level base of committed business professionals who can successfully meet and overcome the challenges of their professional and personal lives.
There are always changes in life and in business. But not all change is negative. Getting the business professional to recognize and successfully adapt to transition is paramount in the development of leadership. With technical and emotional support, the business owner can become a risk-taker, capitalizing on past experiences to steer toward a positive future. He or she will be armed with an arsenal of business connections to pave the way in new ventures.
Members of MPC have a system in place to deal with transitions in life and business. There is no need for fear to influence your decisions. When getting older, look at transitions as a time of relearning. Take an objective view of your past with the good and bad circumstances and how they shaped who you are today. Here is when you can look to other professionals to see and hear about how they coped with similar changes. Be flexible and adaptable, and interact with those business contemporaries who have survived and profited by their own personal transitions.
But the highest benefit of MPC is to the Edmonds community. The positive fellowship of our business community filters down to the neighborhood and ultimately, the individual. We all face transitions in our lives. Learning to adapt and profit from these changes is a worthy goal for the individual. When companies, both small and large, thrive with change, they demonstrate success and civic pride to everyone involved.
Can you see yourself now in a transitional phase of your life, in either a personal dilemma or a career orientation? Reach out to MPC to motivate and inspire a new approach to decision making with confidence and the friendship of successful business leaders.
For more information: www.marketplaceconnections.org.
