Overcommitment in Business - Be Careful What You Raise Your Hand To

Vanessa here with a special little guest. 

We have Sir Winston on set today. He is a six-month-old puppy at this point in time, a Cavapoochon. I want to share with you a funny story about him. A story that will make you think about...

Overcommitment in Business

What does a dog have to do with it?

Winston really wasn't supposed to be joining our family. We have two dogs already. Robert and I went out to a charity event. A non-profit that actually does amazing work here in Phoenix. They work with therapy dogs for children that have been really abused. These dogs are just transforming the lives of these kids. And they had this puppy that they auctioned off. Now, I'm a sucker for auctions and also a very cute puppy. I figured we could help raise the bids, by raising our hands!

Helping or Overcommitting?

So, the hands went up a few times. We were there with some clients. Of course, they were encouraging us, egging us on. All of a sudden we hear, "Congratulations! And the puppy has gone to Robert and Vanessa Shaw." We literally were given Winston right at that moment, at the event.

I'm sitting there in a cocktail dress, Robert in his tuxedo, and we are handed the puppy with his papers and his bed for the night. We were, of course, excited, but also thinking, "Oh my gosh. What have we done?"

We are just delighted to have him as our family. The other two dogs love him as well.

But there really is a quick lesson in here as well.

Be Careful What You Raise Your Hand To

You know, really thinking about that. At the end of the day, I secretly was hoping that we would win, of course. It would have been a great excuse to have an extra puppy in the family. And he really completes our family beautifully.

But, sometimes we do have to think about what we raise our hand to. Is it going to be something that will be an absolute blessing? Or are we raising our hand to things that are going to cause us more problems than we would want to?

I hope you enjoyed meeting Winston today.

Our plan for Winston is actually to train him as a therapy dog. It's going take probably about 18 months for that to happen, but we want to give back to some of these kids that really need the unconditional love of a beautiful dog.