Perhaps by nature I'm more of a defensive player than an offensive one - a counter puncher rather than an opener. I say this because I am comfortable much of the time reacting to what comes my way, and it takes more effort for me to be more proactive.
One of the skills that I have that is valuable at work is the ability to engage and communicate with a wide variety of people, from fishermen to policy makers to scientists, on a wide variety of topics. Whenever it comes my way, I enjoy it, and find it helpful both to me and to the other people. But I've realized that there are many more opportunities out there, if I would take more initiative to reach out and make contact with people.
I've resolved to direct more energy into proactive contact with key people in the fisheries community by making at least one call a week to a person who would be interested and helpful in advancing sustainable fisheries.
Today I made the first call, which provided me with some ideas and information that I can immediately put to use and gave me a list of several more people who I didn't know, but who likely could be good partners.
When I was young I was very shy, and would seldom initiate contact and was very uncomfortable asking people for things - whether for money for a charity, or for help on a project. As an adult, I've grown increasingly confident and more able to initiate conversation and enjoy meeting people, but I think there's still a bias toward introversion in my personality.
I'm looking forward to a lot of interesting conversations and new opportunities to invigorate my work as I invest the energy to reach out.
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