A couple of years ago, I had a personal trainer. His name was Edward Hodges and he became my friend. This meant we spent more time gossiping that we ever did working out. Although I did have real, honest-to-goodness muscles, for a short time. During the time of my twice weekly visits, I would meet other clients. We were all in sweats and various other workout gear and we would nod or complain about the upcoming workout or the weather or something impersonal.

At the first Sacramento Executive event, one of Edward’s clients came up to me and introduced himself. It took me a while to figure out where I knew him from. This time he was wearing a suit, looking very professional and not at all sweaty! As time went on, he would continue to come to the Sacramento Executive events, but I never took the time to figure out what he did exactly. Well, that was my loss.

A few days ago, I received a note from him. He introduced himself to me as having attended several of my Sacramento Executive events and then threw in for good measure (now that’s an unintentional pun) that we had both been clients of Edward’s. Turns out he has a very impressive background - staff counsel in the California Legislature for 17 years, including counsel for the Assembly Judiciary Committee. He was a lobbyist for the Judicial Council for 13 years. He has taken all of that great expertise and is teaching Lobbying seminars. And both the Sacramento Bee and the Daily Journal have written stories about his seminars.

And now the story comes full circle. My daughter just took a job at a lobbying firm. (Let’s not go into how she is living out my greatest fantasy – to be part of the political circle in California – or anywhere, for that matter.) And it turns out that one of the lobbyists in her firm is a guest lecturer at his Lobbying 201 seminar.

So the moral of the story. First, get a personal trainer – it’s good for you. Second, Sacramento is a small, small town, which has its positives and negatives. Third, you never know where you will make connections and when they might become meaningful – conduct yourself accordingly.

In the meantime, check out Ray LeBov’s seminars . Fascinating stuff and really good training for dealing with the government of the 7th largest world economy.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive