Milestones

October has been a month of milestones for me.  

One, on Monday I'll be moving on to a different job.  I closed a chapter of my employment life moving on from my Senior Business Analyst position at Deluxe Corporation Friday.   
The process of this transition happened quite quickly.  Through prior conversations with a former co-worker at Best Buy who now worked at Ecolab who asked me if I was interested in joining her team, I communicated that while I wasn't actively looking to leave Deluxe, Ecolab would be one of two companies I would consider moving to if the opportunity was right.  Deluxe treated me pretty well over the past 18 months in terms of compensation and improved work/life balance from Best Buy.

However, over the past year, there has been "flash points" that created some causes for concern.  Those concerns were elevated over the past couple of months.  So about a month ago, I decided to go forward in discussions with Ecolab about an opportunity in the Business Intelligence (BI) team.  Although I was interviewing in joining Ecolab, which I was very open to considering, I was more interested in learning about how Ecolab was building up its BI team, which is fairly new.  Through these conversations I grew more interested in Ecolab, mainly due to its commitment to building its BI capability.  However, Ecolab said that the fit was not there at the time, which was fine with me, especially since learned quite a bit already.

About a week later I learned that Ecolab wanted to talk to me about a new opportunity in one of its internal start-up companies, Ecosure.  It wanted someone to come in and consolidate and apply an analytical reporting on Ecosure's business performance. After about two conversations with Ecosure management, they said they wanted to bring me on and provided conditions that were quite intriguing.  I said I needed some time to think about it.

So talked to my mother, who said go for it.  I also spent time reflecting on this decision and prayed about it.  At that time I recalled some Scripture that I shed much light to me the last time I contemplated this decision. 

"He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap." Ecclesiastes 11:4

I decided that the time for change has come, I trust that Almighty will my direct my path accordingly.  I start at Ecolab on Monday.

Two, this past month I was able to pay off my mortgage of my residence.  That's correct, I paid off the mortgage of the condo where I live.  Fiscal prudence is something that I take very seriously.  One of my top goals is eliminate all debt.  The idea of living with no payments and have resources available to put to more productive uses, such as charity, is a goal of mine.    So over the past year I have made a gazelle-like effort to pay off my mortgage, which I have done.  However, I still one other mortgage to pay off, on an rental property that I purchased over the summer.  But now that I am free from payments of one debt I can earmark those old debt payments to the rental property, thus helping reduce the principle much quicker.  It's a long road, but I'm getting there.

So milestones have been reached.  But there are goals still ahead.