Shake, Shake, Shake...Shake, Shake, Shake...

Somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain, there's a little shaker. I've never seen the shaker and I really don't know what it looks like. Well, you might ask, "How do you know you have a shaker, then, if you've never seen it?" My answer, "Because somebody told me I had one, that's why...DUH!"

Years ago, I sold life insurance for a living. Scratch that, I worked in the life insurance business...I didn't do a lot of selling. I remember coming home from work one day and telling Angie, "You know, I love this job so much that I'd do it even if I didn't get paid." She replied, "That's obvious...you're not making any money." Good one, Angie...good one.

The life insurance business is tough. The agency I worked for wanted all new agents to report for work at 7:00 in the morning. No prob, Bob...right? But you wind up seeing some clients at their home during the night. Many times I didn't get home until 9:00 or 10:00. That's a long day any way you slice it. Plus, an agent hears the word "no" a whole bunch of times during the day. {I hear that enough at home...hehe.} I struggled at the business for three years.

At one point in my career, I worked with a veteran agent that catered to an affluent clientele. Before he decided to take me under his wing, he put me through a battery of tests to determine if I had what it takes to make it in the business. After taking what seemed like an infinite series of psychological namby-pamby questionnaires, he sat me down and discussed what the tests revealed. That's when I found out I had a shaker in my head.

He told me that my shaker was always sifting through information...trying to reveal the truth...trying to find the best. He said that no matter what was thrown at me, I'd run it through the shaker and determine if it was worthy or not. He also said the shaker was what made me competitive. I'll bet most of y'all didn't know that I have a serious competitive problem. I do a good job of hiding it most of the time. Please don't challenge me to anything or I might get ugly...that's U - G - L - Y and I ain't got no alibi.

The shaker is a burden. Do you know how many times I write and rewrite narrative blogs? It's a good thing I can get by with a few hours sleep. Well, here's what bugging me tonight...I just found a site called: http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/

WHAT THE...?!?

Now all I can think about is how do I get nominated...how can I get recognized...how can I win an award? Arrrrgggghhhh...dang shaker! Oh well, I'm just gonna turn the computer off and go to bed. {I'll probably dream about the stupid blog awards all night.}

By the way...funny thing happened...after working with veteran agent for a short while, I determined he wasn't worthy of my allegiance. So I left. He had no one to blame but himself. Can somebody give me an "amen?"