Career coach

Start With Dessert

By Laura Berman Fortgang on May 30, 2022

We save the “best for last.” We “treat” ourselves with the satisfying pleasure of tantalizing sweets at the end of the meal. That finishing touch.

How does our propensity for dessert relate to knowing what’s right for our lives or career?

Dessert just feels so good as a taste sensation. Career and life satisfaction feels so good too, and we expect it to be the reward of hard work or a good decision. We experience it as a result.

What if, instead, we interpret that sensation as a guide? What feels good is a sign to keep going in that direction.

When clients pay handsome dollars to gain clarity by working with me, they want to go right into their analytical thinking, measuring if I can possibly be smart enough to know what they are built to do with their lives. How do I know? What will I do with them that will make them know too?

Oof. It’s exhausting.

There is little that is analytical about my process. It’s a process to get you to FEEL again. No deep breathing exercises, no meditation assignments nor long journaling assignments.

Nothing wrong with those methods, but I support my clients to feel their way out of the lack of clarity through a set of questions. Then, I measure the level of BS in the answers based on how it feels to me and to them. Sound crazy? Maybe, but it works.

You can start paying attention to how things feel for you right now. Feels good? Proceed. Feels wrong? Nothing will change that and the longer you ignore it, the worse it will get.

Now for the murky territory: Fear. Fear feels bad. Fear can be a reaction to something that feels good too!

It feels good to be creative (let’s just say), but fear kicks in right away that it’s not sustainable, or people will not like what you create, or you can’t make time for something not related to your current job.

In my recent work with a very unhappy career salesperson in their 40’s, he was sure he was ready for a change until he landed on what felt right as a future direction.

He knew it was right, the exercises we did confirmed it, his financial situation presented no obstacles to the change, BUT he was terrified. What if he failed? What if he wanted to get his job back and couldn’t? What if, what if, what if?

Dessert was ruined by the fear of gaining weight!

Nooooooo! Enjoy the dessert. Follow the feeling. Decide by how it feels.

DISCLAIMER: NO GLUTTONY

WAKE UP! Feel Your Way to A New Career

By Laura Berman Fortgang on May 5, 2022

Stop thinking!

Rationalizing, logically ruminating, and plotting are not the most successful ways to figure out what’s next for you in your career and work life. They are good skills and have worked before. However, once you’ve landed on my site or email list, you’re frustrated and looking for new answers.

I’ve got them.

Wake up to how you’re feeling to move the needle on your career exploration!

How you’re feeling is a much better indicator of career satisfaction than thinking.,
do you feel about doing your current job?
How do you FEEL about the things you’d do if you could wave the “magic coaching wand?”
Two different feelings, likely. Am I right?

I know. I know.

I don’t know how to make it happen.
No one will hire me.
I can’t make any money at it.
I’ve invested so much in what I’m doing now.

Did I miss one?

OK. Look. Let’s get real. Yes, there are many obstacles to doing “the thing” that feels right. Biggest one is your thinking (and logic and all that mentioned at the top of this article!) So, what do you do?

Gather the data. What feels right contains data. It’s in your DNA (in my humble opinion); however, we live in a world that doesn’t honor that as it should, but you have to. Harvest this information.

Observe how you can transfer some or all of what feels right into your current situation or a new one that is immediately more attainable.

For example, let’s say that your “magic wand” move would be to be a writer. Finding your way to writing full time and getting paid for it may seem far off, but that should not be a sign to abandon it.

How do you get writing into your life now? Can you do it as a hobby? Can you do more writing at your job? Is there a job change you can make internally that can include more creativity?

Often, the thing we most want to do can be done in some other “form” (novelist vs. adding creativity to your current job) that brings about more satisfaction and fulfillment.

It’s not necessarily a substitute, but rather tapping what you truly want out of being a writer in the first place (to be creative).

This is just one example. Yours is as unique as you are.

What I hope is that you can see that you’ll not logically find your way to a next, satisfying career move. Your body – your feeling – is your best indicator of what’s next.

Wake up. Listen deeply.

Tap us/me if you need an assist.

An Argument for Life-Long Employment

By Laura Berman Fortgang on March 24, 2022

Maybe it’s being critically aware that I’m part of the sandwich generation or maybe it’s my heightened sensitivity brought on by the war in Ukraine, but the pain of those edging towards the end of their usefulness to the workplace is top of mind.

Few of us will be wealthy enough and most of us will be healthy enough to not fully retire at the traditional time.

Even though retirement is a wonderful, hard-earned privilege, there are many people who want to work after they reach retirement age in some way to give structure and meaning to their lives.

Not only are we living longer, saving is harder in our ever-more expensive world, but with that said, it’s also due to how lost people become when they are no longer ‘needed’ or stop contributing in a way that honors what they are capable of.

My father was made redundant eighteen months short of retirement in a company he worked at for 32 years. Dad was lost for the next 25 years. His identity was that job, the money he made, the travel it included and being needed somewhere every day. He dabbled in a couple of things before he gave up completely, but he was gutted.

My mother worked her whole life and was proactive and strategic. She fulfilled a life goal to go to college and graduated with her bachelors at age 54 and a master’s degree a few years later in library sciences, thanks to her company’s tuition reimbursement plan, which set her up for her post-retirement career.

She loved her work at the library until a bout with cancer and the rough medical treatment made it hard to hide a slower pace at work. Once she was done with treatment, her library boss systematically cut her hours until she was rendered useless and let her go. It was crushing and the loss took its toll on her self-esteem and health.

Employers want productivity and getting their money’s worth. I get it. Yet, how can we reinvent society to allow for people of all ages and capacity to participate in work that matters to them? It’s not just about money.

It’s about structure, meaning and identity. It’s so important to mental health and physical wellness. It makes for happier people and families.

We only have to look at Japanese culture to know it is possible. Older workers are paid higher wages and were guaranteed employment for life.

Pairing older and younger workers for skill exchanges have been run as social experiments. Respect for elders is the norm. Children care for parents. Nursing homes are for abandoned people.

The movie, THE INTERN, starring Robert DeNiro and Anne Hathaway, illustrated how younger workers, especially in leadership roles, dismiss older people, unable to imagine them adding value.

The drama unfolds in a way that the dismissed older worker, the intern, later becomes the boss’s wisest advisor.

Mentors, company historians, partners in systems innovation, problem solvers, trainers—- how can we evolve work so that we value experience? It may not be for everyone, but wouldn’t it be nice to know you’d never be irrelevant?

The way I see it, we evolve as a society this way or we start training kids that career planning is lifelong. There’s a first one, a pivot or two, an upward trajectory and then the homestretch of contributing until you can’t.

Retirement? It’ll be available or desirable for less of us. Meaning and contribution are major drivers when health allows for participating in society.

What do you think? Do you dream of a leisurely retirement? Do you think about that chapter as another working iteration?

Please comment and let me know.

INTEGRITY – Does Your Work Have It?

By Laura Berman Fortgang on May 12, 2021

Let me catch you before you head in the wrong direction.

This is not a post lecturing you on honesty and character in the workplace.
No.
Not at all.

The direction I want to point you in is understanding integrity in the context of wholeness.

If a structure had no foundational integrity, it would fail. If your life has no foundational integrity, it will be very, very messy, and likely, dramatic. If your work has no integrity, it’s not aligned with who you are.

The past year of Pandemic Living has revealed many fissures in the infrastructure our lives and shined a spotlight on work/careers whether you got to keep your job or not. It either gave you time to think or time to be in very close quarters with issues you were either ignoring or didn’t know were there.

If you are sitting with a set of discoveries, none too comforting, then you may feel out of sorts.

How do you get back into integrity?

Getting to wholeness requires telling the truth. It’s not easy to take a good, hard look at yourself and what has brought you to this point, but there is no escaping it. The truth will be your ticket to the other side whatever challenge you are facing now.

The steps are simple but require inner work to battle back the logic that tells you it’s not possible to make a change:

Face the truth of what’s keeping you from integrity
Name what’s missing
Keep experimenting with what you have (resume/background), and want like playing with a Rubik’s Cube (OK maybe something not that difficult) so that
you hit that moment when it clicks, the colors line up and the cube (and you) are WHOLE and in full INTEGRITY.

Three recent clients in my private practice have brought this integrity dilemma to our work as we contracted for me to help them gain clarity on their next career iteration. All three in hefty careers, all three knowing their industries no longer fit them. Who they are (what they want, value, need) was no longer aligned with what their industries contributed to the world, and they didn’t know what else they could do or be successfully employed at.

From the polluting side of energy to the sustainability side, from legal doldrums to an exciting and creative use of that skill set in the arts world and the seemingly happy kids’ clothes world to something (yet named, new client) that does not create as much waste and horrible working conditions for factory workers.

These are the kind of journeys back to integrity and wholeness I and the facilitators at Now What? Coaching takes people on from all walks of life.

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The Helplessness of Career Transition

By Laura Berman Fortgang on February 10, 2021

Day in and day out I talk to people who are on a quest to make a change in their work and, therefore, their lives. With that daily privilege comes a front row seat to all the ways that people get in their own way. I’m a witness to helplessness in career transition and as harsh as this may sound, I think the helplessness is a convenient excuse.

Lorraine (name changed to protect confidentiality) was part of a COVID purge and was deflated by the swift and unexpected turn of events in her life. Perfectly understandable she had feelings of betrayal and loss. She could withstand unemployment for a while, but she felt paralyzed by the prospect of finding a new job during an economic downturn.

She admittedly enjoyed some time off, but as the days grew to weeks and then months, she found herself spinning and procrastinating. It was easier to focus on her kids and home projects. She didn’t even want to face the computer and plant herself down to research or apply for jobs online.

Sound familiar?

The Helplessness of Career Transition

Let me offer some different ways of thinking that can help you plant your butt in that seat and put daily action into your job search.

You must shift from:

• Victim to Opportunist — What if life’s sideswipe was not something that happened TO you but rather it was something that happened FOR you? This “new-agey” adage is becoming cliché, but it’s so accurate. Seeing yourself as a victim of this circumstance is a waste of time. Instead, realize it’s an opportunity to correct what you may have not liked about your previous post.

It may be the very kick in the pants you needed to make a change or at least wake you up out of complacency and make you take a good hard look at yourself. What if this really was part of a plan to get you on a path to something better? What will it take for you to see it as an opportunity?

• Lost to Grounded — So many clients feel lost. I know it’s unsettling but feeling grounded, focused and on a path is instantly available. Adopt a different mindset. Reframe “I’m lost” into “I’m uncomfortable not knowing my destination” or “I’m figuring it out.” Both are more powerful than “I’m lost.” It’s OK to not know where you’re headed as long as you make the work of finding the next thing your current destination. You’re on a path to finding the next thing.

• Scared to Willing — Fear is normal. It can be a great motivator until it isn’t because it freezes you, making action impossible. All you need is the will. Are you willing to do what it takes to get to the next job? You don’t have to know exactly HOW you’ll get there, but you have to be willing.

Your thoughts determine your action. If you’re scared and action is zero, “willing” will move you into action. What are you willing to do?

• Loser to Winner — It is FAR too easy to start believing you’re a loser because you were let go or something came to an end without your permission. I had a conversation yesterday with a man who was let go from his last two jobs. He had a sad sack story and was sliding into the pit of despair.

I asked him if it was his fault that those two jobs disappeared. The answer was equivocally no. There was no performance-based reason. These were cutbacks due to the policies of the last four years and then COVID. Surprisingly, saying it out loud that his losses were not his direct fault freed him from his “sad” story, and he was very energized as he told me his thoughts about the changes in his industry that led to the cuts.

He left the conversation with some clarity about where he could find new opportunities just by changing his MIND!

Helplessness is a result of not having practice. Who practices being unemployed? Nobody. There is no preparation training or even discussion about it. It likens to a tabu disease that evokes shame as if it were your recklessness that brought it on.

If you get no practice for being in between jobs (we hope you don’t have practice!), then how should you know how to cope? You don’t. Therefore, what’s required is more discipline and structure than you had when you were in a job. You have to create that for yourself.

Help yourself because it makes you MUCH MORE ATTRACTIVE as a candidate for employment. Would you hire the sad, helpless person, or the one who exudes well-being and clarity about their value?

Hmmmm. Come on, hop to it! You’re not helpless. Use your resourcefulness the way you would if this were a fun creative project you had to figure out. Pretend, if you have to. A new opportunity awaits.

You’re Being Let Go! Don’t Panic. Do This Instead.

By Laura Berman Fortgang on July 17, 2020

You’ve been called in to someone’s office and told that you’re being relieved of your post. You are not being walked out the door within the hour, but rather, you have been advised that you are part of upcoming cuts and that you have a couple of weeks before your last day.

It stings. It hurts. Your anxiety kicks in as your mind races through the images of bills piled up on the kitchen counter and the savings goals you had been working on going to hell.

It’s human nature to want to know why this is happening and to begin gathering as much information as possible to justify, reconcile and absorb what might stabilize the shock. I’m here to warn you that spending the remainder of your employed time processing why this is happening to you is throwing away a great opportunity.

Inspired by a question on our Now What?® Community Call last month, I want to help you focus on what can make a profound difference to your future while you are still on the job.

The young woman who posed the question told us that her time in her position was coming to an end. Her first instinct was to find out who knew why this was happening, and if they had anything to do with it. She was naturally upset, confused, and defensive.

“Don’t get sucked into a drama,” I responded. “Spending your time figuring out who did what and why will waste energy and deprive you of a golden opportunity.”

She saw immediately how easily she was headed down the drama path. She shifted as we spoke to see that instead, she could use the time to cement relationships she’d been meaning to improve anyway for which she had never had the time.

She saw that she could gather industry knowledge from colleagues and bosses while she built bridges instead of burning them.

As she had these conversations, she learned she was liked and that the job really wasn’t a fit, so she felt more confident knowing she would find the next thing AND leave good mojo in her wake.

If you get this news, should you also start looking for a job right away? Absolutely! However, remember how you leave a room is just as important as the first impression you make upon entering.

Try to calm your fear and anxiety about the unknown future and make a graceful exit. Network, say goodbye, get advice, share appreciation, and if asked for an exit survey or asked to give feedback, be truthful but gracious.

“We are letting you go,” does not have to be your cue to rage. It can be your cue to begin strategically reaping the good that’s left from your current role (no stealing please).