Now What? Newsletter Articles

Standing in front of 100 people the other night at a public lecture, I had two men sitting across the aisle from each other who did not know each other, but who unfortunately had a lot in common.

One was my 83-year-old father who has been retired for twenty years. Retirement wasn’t his idea, but there was this nuisance that he was being forced to learn on his job that he believed was a ridiculous fad. That fad was also known as a computer.

The other man was in his fifties and he was complaining about his recent interviewing experiences and how it’s been difficult to land a new job. We began brainstorming about unusual ways to run his job search, and I mentioned being on Linkedin. He immediately barked back that he didn’t ‘do’ social media. Not a great strategy for someone with a strong resume looking to expand their network and find new opportunity.

I understand that things change faster than most of us can absorb, but to flat out refuse to accept what has become the norm is self-sabotage. There is no excuse for that and no sympathy if things are not going your way.

Changing gears a bit, we’ve often heard of the ‘game’ of politics in a workplace. Politics are not everyone’s cup of tea and those who choose not to engage in it may or may not suffer the consequences. One could argue that it’s also a saboteurial move to not engage in office politics. But I don’t agree.

Fitting in with the culture of an organization is important, and if you are not a fit because you don’t ‘play the game’ you may well need find something else. However, it’s not detrimental to your employability.

On the other hand, refusing to master technology required to do your job or conducting a job search based on outdated strategies is not about honoring your values or not fitting in with a culture. It’s about making yourself obsolete. Please don’t do it.

How do you know if a new “fad” is worth following or not? Easy. Look at your results. Are you getting what you want? If not, you owe it to yourself to consider what you’ve judged as unnecessary. The bottom line is: Is the stance you’re taking hurting or helping you?

I am not without empathy in our rapidly changing world. Change is hard. When entire industries are disappearing or being forced to reinvent, we do not have the luxury to stand still.

In the 1980’s movie, War Games, two teens hacked a government computer that was playing all the possible moves that could result in nuclear war, and it became their job to beat the computer and save the world. The end game was discovering that ‘the only way to win was not to play the game’. For office politics, I’m on board with that. For changes to how we do business in this ever-changing landscape, not so much. You’ll take yourself out of the game altogether.

Grow, stretch, and remain relevant. Dig your heels in too deep and you’ll watch the world pass you by.

Coaching Questions:

What changes are you dragging your feet on that you know you must act on?
What do you know you need to stop or start doing immediately?
What will make the difference to your project, mission, or goal right now?

Let us know how we can help.

*From the movie War Games (1983)

As an actor, author, speaker, business owner, parent and community leader, there are many moments when someone wants me to do something on a timeline that is not of my own making.

“You need to jump on that opportunity!”
“ You know what we really need? You should…..”
“If you don’t do that now, you won’t get/ have….”

There’s some wisdom in acting while the ‘iron is hot’, but rushing isn’t always the best strategy either. How many messes and regrets have been created by acting in haste? I’m sure you can count a few. So can I.

On the other end of the spectrum are the people who have big hopes and good intentions who can’t seem to take action or get traction at all! There are so many aspects to the exploration of timing.

How do we know the time is right for something? How do we know if our lack of action is self-sabotage or some divine pause that promises great result? Here are a few things to consider:

Push vs Pull—Does this new to-do make you feel heavy and downtrodden or does it excite you and interest you even if you have no idea how you’d possibly make it happen? It must compel (pull) you.

If you feel like you’re being pushed to do it, think twice.

Check Your Gut—The next time someone throws a ‘should’ at you, take the time to pause and feel your gut reaction. Is it a yes in your deepest core? If not, take more time to think. Don’t force it to become a yes. If you do have to force it, you’ve got your answer.

Watch The Pain—If you are wondering if you’re procrastinating or just operating on your own special timing, notice how much pain you’re in. It’s pretty simple.

If you’re suffering in your current situation, beating yourself up, feeling anxious and/or reacting to your timing, you could stand to take a bold move to break the inertia.

If you are really not feeling prompted to make a change and there’s no emotional cost to you, play it out. Sometimes, ‘not now’ is appropriate.

Call for Help—If you’re stopped from making a decision or taking action because you get overwhelmed by the workload, the order in which things should happen, or you need a sounding board, it’s time to ask for help. Friends, family or a pro, the decision is yours.

Everyone has their own pace. Some of us stroll, some of us can’t bare anything slower than a frenetic sprint. Get to know your pace and how it changes in certain scenarios.

There are only so many ‘front burner’ projects we can have. Just don’t let the pain get too great if you are considering a big move and dragging your feet.

Time waits for no one. Choose with awareness, and don’t rush.

Let us know how we can help.

If you know my story, you might remember that I suffered a devastating breakdown in my twenties that I created my own comeback strategy for. Anxiety and fear completely ruled my life for three torturous years. It was a hard-won, yet simple, adjustment in my focus that allowed me to re-enter life as a healthy person.

Chaos and confusion can cause many things but one of them is overwhelm.

Us humans, when faced with overwhelm, break down, go manic or shut down completely because our systems can’t take it.

There is another solution.

Adjusting your focus.

In overwhelm, we are flailing to do too much or get paralyzed not knowing where to begin. The key is to block out the noise and narrow your focus onto something you CAN control.

Make it simple by narrowing the aperture and dealing with the ‘subject’ that is right in front you. It may just be breakfast, an essential meal to fuel your brain and body to get ready for the rest of it. It may be the person in front of you that needs your attention most at that moment. I may be just stopping and taking ten deep breaths so you can center yourself. Whatever it is, it’s a narrower focus being called for so your vision can become clear again.

We are offering a way to do that if you are working on your next step in work or life.

Join us this week for our Now What? Summit this week—Unusual Strategies and Proven Results for Making Your Career Transition.

9 sessions with 9 different areas of focus that will help you get moving . No more blurriness! Only sharp focus which will result in action. And it’s ABSOLUTELY free.

TUES, WED and THURS this week! See you there. REGISTER NOW

Eighteen years—-gone in a flash. On August 28th, my first child will turn eighteen and on August 29th, he’ll be dropped off at college. That’s it. He belongs to the world more than ever. He’ll no longer belong to me.

Some of you may be going through the same thing with your kin or maybe you have to let go of a stage of your life or career right now. I think the transition is similar.

How do we make a transition to a new identity when we’ve held the current one so deeply that it is part of the fabric of our being? We have no choice but to move forward with the parts we can keep.

I won’t be needed as much. I won’t be included as much but what I can move forward with is my love for this young person and my intense hope that life gives
him a fair or extraordinarily great hand.

I can persist in my presence (at a distance) and be available when I’m needed. I can keep using my listening skills and my ability to guide with questions. And, oh yeah, I can keep filling his bank account. (Ha!)

It won’t be the same. It just won’t. And lamenting that won’t change anything or make me feel better.

The same with a job, a career, or even a marriage or partnership. No, life will not be the same. But we can move on with the constants; hard and soft skills, your life or work lessons and the impact you’ve made and can make again somewhere else.

In the Now What?® program we call the process of assessing what moves forward with you ‘separating the yolk from the rest of the egg’. Let’s keep the nucleus, the DNA that is organically you and discard the rest.

Everything that can be taken away is the rest. All that is undeniably you can move forward to your next adventure.

Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is… The only problem in your life is your mind’s resistance to life as it unfolds. ”
Dan Millman

You are not your job description, your nice office, your salary or even the perception others have of you. You are a living, breathing being that can create again.

You can create a new opportunity, a new relationship or a transformed circumstance. Human beings are highly creative and resourceful.

I’ll recreate the relationship with my son. I’ll keep my mouth shut more (at least I’ll try). I’ll work on quieting my need for information on his whereabouts and experiences.

(He was just on an overnight, two-day orientation at the university and it took everything I had not to text twenty times a day asking “What are you doing now????!!”) Since I won’t be able to see the state of his dorm room, I know I’ll nag less,and I’m sure that will go a long way toward building a different relationship.

We never lose what the past formed in us, but we do get the chance to choose how
we evolve through change. We don’t always choose the change, but we can let it grow us eventually even if we are temporarily hurt or bereft by our loss.

And granted, some losses take more time to mourn than others. Mourn if you have to. I know I will. But never stop moving.

In closing, a little spotlight on how mother and son are already moving forward. Being that my son’s chosen college is less than an hour from home he asked: “You won’t be coming to visit me all the time will you?” My retort?
“You won’t be coming home to have laundry done all the time will you?”

Touché!

Let go, and move on!

“What are my next steps?”

Coming from a client’s mouth, these words, although heard often, give me pause. Truly, any question aimed at me rife with expectation that I hold the answer to a riddle that is not mine, gives me pause. I usually respond with a question back.

“What ARE the next steps?” “What do you think?”

Just because I ask it back, doesn’t mean the answer is immediate, but it does surface eventually. It is their answer, not mine. However, more important is what blocks people from seeing what their next steps are. Sometimes, it is a lack of knowledge. Most often, I find, it’s a lack of vision. People can’t see (in their mind’s eye) where they are and what they need to do to achieve their goals. The landscape of time and space is too vast.

What does it mean if you can’t ‘see?’

Generally speaking, we all have vision, but we have it in relative degrees. Those we call ‘visionary’ tend to be able to imagine (see) far beyond the rest of us and conjure products or ideas that can change the landscape of commerce or society for the better and forever.

Others have what I’ll call mid-range vision. They can imagine and ‘see’ what they want to create for themselves, their families, their work, or their company.

Those whose vision is just a few feet in front of them will feel more limited in their ability to decide on next steps or choose a direction, and yet they may be extraordinary at executing tactical strategies that require discipline and attention to detail. Finally, those who claim they have no vision at all are blocked. I’ll get into why that might be shortly, but for now, know that it can be remedied.

In my observation, we are not limited to any one of these levels of vision. We might be able to operate across all of them in different contexts of our life. For example, Einstein could mentally ‘see’ his way to solve huge problems and prove theories, but he needed an assistant to find his keys and run the minutiae in his life. His vision was huge in one area and insufficient in organizing his own life. It can happen to the best of us.

Black-and-white, highly analytical thinkers like lawyers, engineers, scientists or those who use rational and logical thinking to feel safe tend to have a harder time with vision. Their minds are well trained to look for certainty and proof, and they will find it hard to jump over to the right brain to let imagination take over. If it’s unproven, it will be hard to accept.

Those who have experienced more than their fair share of trauma or emotional scarring in their past may struggle to trust the process of envisioning, dreaming or projecting oneself into the future. It was not safe to let down their guard in their younger years so it’s hard to imagine how it could be a good idea now.

How do we enhance our vision, then? What will let us see our next steps?

I can tell you that finding a way to seeing more clearly could mean some hard work ahead of you. Less than stellar emotional, physical, mental, or environmental factors in your life greatly diminish your ability to ‘see’. Everyone wants the big ‘ah-ha,’ but it’s the small victories that bring us into a clear vista with a longer view.

Rising above the pain and strife of daily life brings clarity, whether that’s clearing up unfinished professional or personal communication or delegating tasks that take up time and energy but don’t play to your strengths.

Is there a faster way to get unstuck? Yes, I think so. Get into nature. Be a tiny spec amongst the grandeur of nature and notice the vastness surrounding you. Take that awareness back to your life and you may discover the bigger thinking and action required to move out of a stuck place. The hard work of cleaning up your life will likely persist. However, with this new perspective, you may be able to approach it without getting hooked by what really doesn’t matter. The bigger vision that’s brewing within you will inspire you to move forward.

The key is renegotiating your place in relation to all that goes on around you. You have to be above it to see it. If you are climbing a mountain and you can only see the climb, you’re limited, and you will struggle. However, when you face out, away from the mountain, and take in the view, you’ll draw more energy from the perspective. The view only gets better the higher you get.

You can see and you will see but you must create the circumstances to make it possible. Now go! Climb on!

I’ve been struggling with what to write for a newsletter during the last couple of weeks. I’ve been so completely immersed in living Now What?

for many months as I wrote and prepared for the new book to come out in March that I’ve felt drained.

I took care of myself by taking a much needed week’s break. I slept, I caught up with my children, and I spring purged my home. And now that I’m back at the computer, there’s something bigger on my mind.

The earthquake in Nepal and the Baltimore riots are in the news so they are cramping my brain space. We are in another period of unrest and another crisis brought on by Mother Nature.

They are not really all that different from each other. Upset people who have been holding on to an underground rumble of anger are not unlike the earth seeking relief from underground pressure by reorganizing its platelets, unfortunately, under a very populated city.

Unsaid things are brewing underneath the surface all the time. For each of us individually and collectively, whether in a workplace, community, organization, or gang, the unsaid is at risk of coming to a boiling point.

This is true in career and clarity exploration as well. There is often an unspoken resentment or dissatisfaction that, when not addressed, builds up over time to become a problem we are forced to face. If we could have faced it before, it wouldn’t have been left unsaid.

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to coach an executive during the course of 3-1/2 hour training on coaching skills. She presented a communication issue she was having with a new person who had come into her department.

As my questions probed more deeply, it became very clear that the problem was not really about how these two individuals communicated with each other, but rather something unsaid coming into light.

What became clear was that the executive resented this new recruit because she felt she should have the new person’s job. There was no need, in her opinion, to have a younger, less-experienced person as her boss.

How long would it have taken for the ‘unsaid’ to have leaked out through actions, tone, and difficult conversations?

It may not have been appropriate to come completely clean and be honest about the resentment right away, but it was important for the executive to be clear with herself and get to the truth. SHE was creating the problem, not the new hire.

As the coaching went on for all of 5-7 minutes, she also admitted that this resentment lit a fire in her to look at opportunities in her own company. Her research already turned up one. She will be applying for the job that would make her the new hire’s boss!

Rumblings create energy that will inevitably find a way to be released. We may not be able to control Mother Nature, but it’s important for us as reasoning humans to be aware that what’s rumbling, if left unattended, becomes a problem.

It’s unfortunate when the truth explodes through anger or violence like with the Baltimore riots and other unrest around the world.

When these crises feel like something we can’t affect because they’re too big or too far away, we need to remember that we can do something. We can bring peace to ourselves by telling the truth kindly and compassionately. Peace begins at home- the home within you.