What is speaking to you so softly, that you might only barely hear it?
What’s easy to pretend you don’t hear because it’s not nearly as loud as your fear?
Here’s what Steven Spielberg has to offer about listening to those whispers.
Opportunity
Like Nike Says: “Just Do It!”
Most “overnight successes” did not begin with any resemblance to their future success. What sets them apart is the people who had the courage to follow their vision. They did what many (most) people with great ideas don’t – they took a step and they BEGAN!
“Whether it’s a garage, a basement, or a dorm room, every business has humble beginnings. It’s not about where you start. It’s where you end up.” So, what’s cooking for you? And, what one step could you take today to make your dream a reality?
Motivational Quote: Desire to Change
Is It Flying Or Is It Just Me?
The last few years have felt like they’ve been speeding by and this one is on steroids compared to them. I feel catapulted i
nto outer space by the speed at which time flies. Oddly, the feeling bookends the individual days that seem to have plenty of time in them.
The push and pull, pulse-racing and deep breathing seems to be the ying and yang of recent times and I think it reflects what happens for the clients I work with on their careers. The rhythm of life and business don’t have a steady pace. It ebbs and flows and so does your career search or your ability to move ahead.
Can you harness that or control it? The key is to be ready for it and expect it. Circumstances don’t stay good or bad. Things are always in flux.
The way to deal with it is to create conditions you can control. You can control (or at least plan) a structure within which to work on the changes you want to create. Be consistent in those actions. For example, if you are looking into what you might do next or you are sending out resumes, keep doing the research and wallpapering the internet with your resume no matter what. Repetition is key.
I’ve recently started to step up my exercise regime after a long streak of doing minor amounts of physical activity due mostly to back issues. I hate working out so much it was easy to let the smallest amount of pain keep me from trying. However, the middle-age spare tire has been growing and the lazy streak had to stop. I’ve had to get back up to speed slowly—first taking restorative yoga classes and aerial yoga which is very easy on the body. Finally, it was time to take an intermediate level class. After the first one, I couldn’t walk for five days. Once I could walk, I came back every other day. My level of fitness is increasing. Weight loss will come but consistency is going to be the most important factor. I’m not back to doing a headstand or handstand. I am not back to full flexibility but I know it will come if I keep up consistent action. I know that they gym with weights and cardio will interest me again as I keep feeling better and wanting to build strength further and further.
Here is what I want you to take away from this. Consistent action. We can’t wait to see success. We have to just keep building and stop measuring the results.
Obviously, you are not going to persist if something is not working at all but with steady, consistent work peppered with the occasional burst of high-intensity creativity and action will get results. Just don’t give up. I’m saying that to myself too.
I worked with Scott in the last year on figuring out what he wanted to do with his life. We succeeded at gaining clarity on what his next career move needed to include to gain the satisfaction he was missing. When we parted ways, his job was to keep networking to make his way into a new field. What transpired over consistent action and time (less then four months) was that he was approached by a vendor he worked with through his job to lead their $800 million company. Scott’s story will appear in the updated and revised anniversary edition of Now What? coming out March 2015 so stay tuned for details.
Be consistent. Keep on your career quest. I’ll keep going to the (yoga) mat. Time won’t stand still for us but we will be less at the effect of it if we stay the course.
CUT OUT THE MIDDLE STEP
by Now What?® Coaching Founder, Laura Berman Fortgang
Four years ago, at a bookstore event, a woman asked a question about a career strategy she was hatching. Her goal was to become a global director for the multinational company she worked for. Her question was about her next move to attain an interim position that would get her to her goal. Immediately, I realized she did not want that interim step but it was what she thought was necessary to get what she wanted. I recommended just going for what she really wanted instead.
I never heard from her again until a few weeks ago. She told me she had been holding that global director position since shortly after she asked that question.
Another woman had come to get some short-term coaching to confirm she had made the right career choice for herself. She was in a pharmacist’s training school. Once we got to work it was clear that being a pharmacist was not what the woman wanted at all! She chose that field because she felt it had job security and she could build a good financial future for herself. The truth was she was miserable and hated every minute of it. She wanted a strong financial future, not a pharmacist’s life.
Both these women and countless others, male and female, mistakenly put a middle step between where they are and where they want to go. Every path we take in life has its stepping stones. No one is going to get a driver’s license and then fly an airplane. You’d need flying lessons and getting the required hours before getting in the air. However, there are other life steps or career steps that are not necessary but rather, mere creations of our own mistaken rules for accomplishment.
If you hear yourself thinking: “ I need to do x to get y” think again. Take out the ‘x’ and re-examine your strategy. The truth is “I want Y”. The question is ‘how do I get that?’. That is what should form your strategy.
Life will tell you if there is indeed an interim step you need, you don’t need to make more work for yourself. Take out the middle step and see how you springboard into opportunity.
Vern and his Molecat
by Kirsten Meneghello, Now What® Facilitator
Our family went to the state fair this weekend and had a great time. I love to see the cows, pigs, llamas, and the proud 4-H kids showing off the animals they have raised. It’s a big deal.
While we were visiting the commercial exhibitors/vendors, we passed the requisite guy selling knives while slicing and dicing veggies and telling corny jokes. But I also met a really interesting guy who was selling an invention called the “Molecat.” It’s a device that kills moles instantly with percussion. It’s a pretty clever device and as I was talking with the salesman, I could tell he was really jazzed about it. I asked him, “Are you the inventor?” and he said proudly, “Yes.”
Since I’m a curious person, I asked him his name and how he came up with the idea. Vern said he used to work for Intel as a “troubleshooter” but was laid off a few years ago. He was helping his wife in the garden and they encountered a big mole problem. He put his troubleshooting and engineering skills to work and created a solution — the Molecat. Now Vern has a patent pending on the device and he and his wife run a business selling Molecats.
I was so touched by his story because when he got laid off from his job, he didn’t see it as the end of the world. He put his same skills to work — troubleshooting and engineering — and looked at opportunities to use them in his daily life. When Vern saw this opportunity, he took action and did something about it.
Since the economy has taken a downturn, there are a lot of people who have been laid off and have not taken it as well as Vern. But even if you have lost your job, you have to remember you have not lost your skills, creativity, work ethic, and knowledge that you have gained along the way. It’s important to step back, realize all you are and all you have accomplished and then apply it in a different way. I know all of us aren’t cut out to be entrepreneurs or inventors. But we can “re-invent” ourselves, if we are OPEN to opportunity and take ACTION when we are presented with options.
P.S. I’m not affiliated with Vern’s product in any way, but if you are curious (like me!) about Vern and his Molecat, his website is www.molecat.com.