Here are two possible scenarios to consider:

Scenario A;  Career Transition to a New Job

1. Explore your wants and needs for career fulfillment by identifying your particular requirements (How much income must you have?  Where and when are you willing and able to work?  What are your top 3 things you must have in your next job in order to be happy?)
2. Identify potential employment opportunities
3. Research potential employers to determine corporate or organization culture, management style, mission and vision.
4. Update and revise your resume to maximize getting interviews
5. Build your network through informational interviewing, attending events related to your profession, joining professional associations, and using social media.
6. Enhance your interviewing skills – practice how you will answer difficult questions
7. Navigate job offers, negotiate your salary/benefits

Scenario B;  Career Transition into Self Employment

1. Explore your wants and needs for career fulfillment by identifying your particular requirements (How much income must you have?  Where and when are you willing and able to work?  What are your top 3 things you must have in your next job in order to be happy?)
2. Analyze ways of working to determine the best fit for you.  For example: be employed part time while building your business, or writing your book or going to school, etc., or jumping full time into starting a business.
3. Conduct market research to be sure that your business idea is realistic.
4. Launch your business and determine your niche.  What is the scope of your service or product line?  Who benefits from what you are putting out into the marketplace?
5. Develop your marketing strategy for your business including your brand.
6. Build your network:  create cross referrals with colleagues who serve the same customer demographic, utilize social media, blogging and article writing to establish your expertise.
7. Navigate project offers, draft proposals to meet customers’ needs, determine pricing and distribution channels for your product or service.

In either scenario A or B you start in the same place: exploring YOUR wants and needs for career fulfillment.

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”  -Henry David Thoreau

Employee                                                                                Entrepreneur

Regular paycheck                                                                Unlimited income potential

Orders                                                                                    Options

The office                                                                               World headquarters

Co-workers                                                                           Collaborators

Grumbling                                                                             Gratitude

Stagnation                                                                             Innovation

Servitude                                                                               Freedom

Pleasing others                                                                   Pleasing yourself

Routine                                                                                  Flexibility

Having a boss                                                                      Being the boss

Blend in                                                                                 Stand out

Complacent                                                                          Curious

Victim of circumstance                                                       Creator of own destiny

Feeling small                                                                        Feeling tall

Commiserate                                                                        Brainstorm

The toughest one for most is the first, the money issue.  We live in a culture that trains us from childhood to follow the rules, work hard, know the right answers and teachers will reward you with good grades. These lessons groom us for the employee mentality.  Be at work on time, work hard, maybe you can get a good “grade” resulting in the reward of a raise. By virtue of our jobs, we live around set schedules of when to sleep, eat, go to work, take a break, go home and take vacations.  It is a very structured life.  Step out of the job world and you are suddenly free of the schedules, the structure, the expectations of employers and co-workers.  The very ambiguity sends some would be entrepreneurs back to the perceived security of the J-O-B.  With the recent trend of downsizing, furloughing, and layoffs, there is no longer security in having a job. (Was there ever?)

Why not consider doing your own enterprise?  Use your skills and talents in a way that is not only personally satisfying but also fills a need in the marketplace?  One of the advantages is actually the ambiguity. When you don’t know what’s coming next, you are pushed to be creative, to stretch your imagination and to live outside your “comfort zone”.  If you try out an idea, a service or product and you don’t get the results you want you get to improvise, improve the design or create something different.  It’s wonderfully empowering to use your own skills, talents and abilities to turn an idea into a product or service that serves others and brings you income.  Not ready to leave the JOB?  That’s okay, you can always do a little business on the side and see where it grows!  Just remember to focus on thinking like an entrepreneur.

“You can do or be whatever you want in your own life.  Nothing can stop you, except your own fears.  Don’t blame anyone else…you have the power to make the decision.  Just do it.”            – Nola Diamantopoulos

“Victory always starts in the head.  It’s a state of mind.  It then spreads with such radiance and such affirmations that destiny can do nothing but obey.”  –Douchan Gersi

And one more thing, a nod to Barbara J. Winter who taught me the importance of thinking like an entrepreneur.  Putting two columns and comparing employee mindset to entrepreneur was her idea and I borrowed some of her definitions.   Check out her site:  joyfully jobless for support on the entrepreneurial journey.

I heard from a former client recently who has been having a hard time finding work.  He shared his frustration about applying for “100’s” of jobs not getting interviews, or if he did have an interview, not getting a job offer.  After 18 months of this, he was pretty angry.  He proceeded to give me a litany of reasons for his negativity.  Let’s look at these four:

1. Employers are rude, they won’t even acknowledge that they have received my applications.

2. The economy sucks, no one is hiring.

3. Companies won’t pay me what I am worth.

4. The people doing the hiring are guilty of age discrimination.

While these statements may have some truth to them, they are undermining the candidate’s chances for employment.  Why?  Because the unhappy jobseeker is blaming externals for his predicament and his negative attitude is derailing his forward motion.  Yup, the number one reason you may not be getting hired is your attitude.

Let’s look at each of these complaints from a more positive perspective.

1. Employers are swamped with applicants and may be short staffed.  Imagine yourself as the hiring person being deluged with resumes, many of which are poorly written, hard to read, and inappropriate for the position.  Having been in the position of screening resumes, I can tell you it is an exercise in patience to review each one and make thoughtful decisions regarding which pile to put it in:  maybe a fit, not a fit but maybe could be considered for something else, and totally unqualified for the position.  Then you take the maybe stack and sort it down to the strongest candidates, coming up with the number of candidates to be interviewed (like the top 3-10).  Is it reasonable to expect every person be sent an acknowledgment that their application has been received?  I don’t think so.

2. Even in economic downturns people are hiring. You may just have to look harder to identify where you might fit. 80% of jobs aren’t advertised. I encourage you to do some information interviewing to get the inside scoop on a company’s culture, needs and potential openings. If there truly are no jobs in your field, consider starting your own business.  Really look at your resume.  What else can you do with your experience, education, training, and talent?

3. What are you worth, really, to a potential employer?  In your correspondence and contact with an organization you need to stress what YOU can do for THEM, not the other way around.  Can you save them time, increase productivity, save them money?  How will the organization benefit by hiring you?

4. Although there may be age discrimination, carrying it around as a chip on your shoulder is not going to help you get hired.  Instead of tackling the “age issue” emphasize your experience, your knowledge, the wisdom you bring and the maturity.  Another advantage of hiring older workers is that they tend to be reliable, dependable, and diligent workers. Turn your attitude into thinking about what a great catch you are for some fortunate employer and see if that doesn’t make a difference!

Bottom line—put yourself in the employers’ role, wouldn’t you rather hire a candidate with a positive attitude?  Yeah, so would I.

Go forward confidently, energetically attacking problems, expecting favorable outcomes. Norman Vincent Peale

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude. Thomas Jefferson

More great quotes on attitude

In working with people on career change one question I hear frequently is: “How can I have work that is personally fulfilling, makes a difference, and pays the bills?” There is no easy answer to this question. Cheryl Richardson in her book Stand Up for Your Life says: “First, you must make your personal and spiritual development a top priority by following your own unique path toward healing and growth. Second, as you develop a strong character by doing this work, you are also charged with improving the world in some way.”

Personal and spiritual development requires you to look inward, to get to know your inner self. Who are you? What are you passionate about? What are you good at? What motivates you? What kinds of tasks do you really enjoy doing and do well? You don’t have to have all the answers at any given time but it can be extremely helpful to identify these.

Here are some examples:
• bringing joy to others
• building things
• teaching or mentoring others
• creating beauty
• healing wounds
• analyzing information
• finding a new or better way for something to function
• gathering data
• nurturing people

Think about what you love to do that comes easily to you. These are your natural talents or “gifts”. Next, consider how these talents are expressed in your life. Let’s say for example, you identified “teaching or mentoring others” as a core driver for you. How might you do that in your life? Is it something you do in your current occupation or job? Are you able to teach or mentor through other means such as volunteer work? If not, is there a way you can incorporate teaching and mentoring others into your life? Moving into the work you love to do and do well gives us energy, it feeds the spirit and more often than not, brings us a sense of abundance as well as increasing our cashflow.

If you have a sense of being prompted to move into a different line of work, consider what is missing in your current job or occupation. Could be a bit of looking inward is in order. More on this next post!

What are you dreaming of doing, of creating, of finding? These thoughts are prompting you to take some action! We tend to sit in our minds complacently pondering the “what ifs” and wondering about the roads not taken in the past and years go by. Sound familiar? How about these thoughts: “I can’t switch careers now, I am too old” or “I’d have to go back to school and get a degree/training/certified”, or “the economy is bad, now is the wrong time for me to start a business”.

What are you telling yourself that is holding you back from pursuing your life’s work? Make a list, write it down and then go through each and every thought and look at it boldly and ask; “is this really true?” If your inclination is to nod your head just stop for a moment and watch the “proof” that your minds puts up. How do you know the internal dialog you are listening to is the truth? What if it isn’t? What if you could move beyond the naysaying in your brain and embrace a different perspective? Challenge yourself! What do you dream of doing, of becoming? Play around with ways you can share your talents, your abilities, your knowledge and skills with others. Who knows? You just may find yourself turning your dreams into reality!

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening
That is translated through you into action,
And because there is only one of you in all time,
This expression is unique.

If you block it,
It will never exist through any other medium
And will be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is:
nor how valuable it is:
Nor how it compares with other expression.
It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly,
To keep the channel open.

You do not have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep open and aware and listen
To the urges that motivate you.”
–Martha Graham and Agnes Demille

When I opened my eyes this morning with the dream still fresh in my mind, I had this flash of “Yeah, I need a map!”. As the fog of sleep receded I realized what I actually need is to create a roadmap for my life and business aspirations for this New Year. You may be familiar with the saying; “If you don’t have a destination and a map to get there, how will you know when you’ve arrived?”

In working with clients in career and life transitions, I have found the Mind Mapping process to be invaluable as a method to open up new possibilities for fulfilling work, create business plans and orchestrate life changes. It is a technique to utilize both the linear, analytical, logical side of the brain with the intuitive, creative, artistic side. Definition: “the Mind Map is the external mirror of your own radiant or natural thinking facilitated by a powerful graphic process, which provides the universal key to unlock the dynamic potential of the brain.” (from mindmapping.com)

We are taught to make lists and write or type from the left to the right in rows. The brain doesn’t think linearly, it works by association branching out in many directions from each thought.

As you think about what you want to accomplish in the New Year, you may want to access both your intellect and your intuition, the left and right sides of your brain respectively. Give it a try!

How to Mind Map:
1. Use a large piece of paper, like flip chart size or poster board.
2. Place your topic in the center of the page and work outward.
3. Use color and graphics to represent themes, associations and to emphasize.
4. Play some invigorating music to stimulate your right brain.
5. Keep your writing hand moving, if you don’t know what to write next, add color or circle words of importance.
6. Consider using stars, arrows and icons to connect different ideas or elements.

Don’t censor yourself, as ideas pop into your head, get them down on the paper. Think of this exercise as making a giant doodle with a purpose; to utilize your whole brain! Use whatever arts and craft stuff you have on hand: crayons, markers, colored pencils, stamps, stickers etc. For some visual examples and more information on Mind Mapping check out these resources:

Books:
The Mind Map Book, by Tony Buzan and Mindmapping, by Joyce Wycoff are my favorites.

Software

I propose a different perspective on work. How about looking at work as a vehicle to joyfully express your talents, skills, and creativity and make a difference in the world? It would be great if we came with directions for our life internally imprinted so that we’d know exactly what vocational path to travel. As the poet Rumi said, “everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in his (or her) heart.” It seems to me that doing work you love to do get’s you closer to uncovering your heart’s desire than doing work you dislike.

One way to identify potentially fulfilling kinds of work, is to look at your natural gifts and talents. Make a list of all the things you enjoy doing and do well such as: building boats, organizing data, healing emotional distress, keeping track of timelines. Joe, for example, has a talent for taking complex technical information and translating it into terms non-techies can understand. Not only does he do this competently, he really enjoys the process. When he is working on a project, he becomes so engaged in it that he typically loses track of time. The hours fly by and he finds he is energized rather than exhausted at the end of his workday. Joe is perhaps doing “the work that has been put in (his) heart”, as Rumi states.

We often think there is some profound “calling” to heed and that one day we will figure out what that is. In reality, callings don’t often show up with a job title. Instead of seeking that perfect career, that “dream job” consider finding a way to create income doing those tasks you do well and love to do.

Megan is a mosaic artist who loves to take beautiful pieces of colored glass and make everything from bird baths to address tiles. She teaches classes on mosiac making, and sells her products from her home studio, at shows and on the internet.

Take a moment, make your list, and listen to what your heart is telling you. What do YOU love to do that you do well? Get input from your friends and family. You may be surprised at the talents they recognize in you. See if you can come up with a list of 10 things and then look at how you may be able to generate income doing some of them.

More on this topic next post!

“Everyone has a vocation, talent is the call.” -Emerson

In his post this morning, Jonathan Fields asked, “are you building a body of work or a cornucopia of chaos?” My natural tendency toward pondering the possible rather than concentrating on the concrete leads me toward the chaotic side of the equation. In explaining the difference between the two, Jonathan listed several dichotomies, here are a couple that hit home for me:

• One is about progressive, conscious building within a well defined area of interest, the other is about bouncing to wherever the next perceived opportunity lies without regard to growth and consistency.

• One is about being mindful, present and proactive, the other is about being disconnected, frenetic and reactive.

I often find myself “bouncing to perceived opportunities” and “being disconnected, frenetic and reactive.” These tendencies inhibit productive work and lead to greater confusion. Here’s my take on how to handle it:

1) Recognize what is happening. When we run around trying to keep too many balls in the air at once, we may think we are being productive when we are really just being way too busy. When you find yourself being forgetful, running late, or struggling to keep track of everything, you’re doing too much.

2) Stop, look, and listen. When you notice you are in the midst of frenetic activity, stop whatever you are doing, look at your surroundings, and listen to your breathing. You will naturally shift into a moment of mindfulness. From that place of centered awareness, you can regain your perspective and chose a less chaotic path going forward.

As Jonathan reminds us, “powerful legacies rarely if ever occur in the form of scattershot, piecemeal efforts…cornucopias of chaos… no matter how fun, windswept or purposeful they seem when we’re adrift with them.”

When you find yourself moving into chaos, what do you do to shift out of it?

1. What do you love to do? Think about your hobbies, interests, recreational and volunteer activities. Most of us enjoy doing things we are good at, so our leisure activities can be indicators of your gifts and talents.

2. Recall an event when you were so absorbed in what you were doing that you completely lost track of time. What activity were you engaged in? How did it make you feel?

3. What do you naturally do well? What actions are easy for you? (for example: writing stories, fixing things, analyzing trends, cooking, organizing events, managing money, remembering facts, teaching, envisioning new ways of being, resolving disputes, creating beauty, etc.)

4. What are five things in your life, past or present, which you are most proud of or feel were your most successful accomplishments?

5. Is there a cause, a movement, or an idea that you feel committed to and passionate about? What would you “put it all on the line” for?

6. Think of a time when you experienced a breakthrough
realization. Can you describe what you were doing and where you were when you had an “ah ha” moment?

7. Looking back over your life up to now, do you see any repeating incidents, patterns or themes? What can they tell you about what you like (or don’t like) to do with your time?

8. What do you daydream or fantasize about doing? Have you ever said, “Some day I’d like to do that?” What would that be?

9. Can you think of a time when you were watching or reading about another person’s accomplishment(s) and wished you could do that? Is there a person living or dead that you greatly admire? What do you most admire that person for?

10. Do you have a sense that you have things yet to accomplish? Try to identify those. From the perspective of being at the end of your life and looking back, what will it feel like if you never attempt to do these things? What do you still want to do in your life?

11. What are 3 things you would actually do if you knew you could not fail and money was not an issue?
 

12. What do you want to be remembered for? How will you have contributed to the world?

Many of us have felt this kind of restlessness in relation to our jobs and the work we do. When you feel restless, tense, or on edge at work, it may be a sign that you’re not doing work that is fulfilling to you, that you are not self-actualized. Self-actualization is achieved when we are successfully fulfilling all of our needs.

Maslow created a hierarchy of needs “Hierarchy of Human Needs;” the basic needs like breathing, food, and water are on the bottom and self-actualization is at the top. In order to be completely fulfilled, one must achieve self-actualization. When this occurs, many positive characteristics emerge. People become more accepting of themselves, more spontaneous, self-reliant, and independent. They gain a stronger sense of integrity, as well as an increased zest for life and sense of humor. Creativity and curiosity increase, self-esteem improves, and people become more altruistic, humanitarian, socially responsible, and adaptable to change.

What I find most interesting about this list is that the majority of successful entrepreneurs I know embody these traits. By stepping out of the world of traditional employment, they became more self-actualized and, in turn, more able to handle the challenges of entrepreneurship.

“If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves” – Thomas Edison