How to do what I want?

A great short story told by Paul Coelho on work:

As soon as he dies, Juan found himself in a very beautiful place surrounded by all the comforts and beauty he had ever dreamed of. Someone dressed in white came up to him:

- You are entitled to whatever you wish: any food, pleasure, entertainment - he said.

Enchanted, Juan did everything he had dreamed of during his life. After many years filled with pleasure, he sought out the person in white:

- I’ve already tried everything I wished for. Now I need a job so that I can feel useful.

- I’m so sorry - said the person in white. - But that is the only thing that I cannot manage for you; there is no work here.

- How terrible! - said Juan in irritation. - I shall spend eternity dying of tedium! I’d prefer a thousand times to be in hell!

The creature in white came over to him and said in a low voice:

- And where do you think you are?
So do you live to work or work to live? Or is real work, on the things that matter most in your life, actually just really living?

9:02 AM | Labels: | 0 Comments  

I’ve been Outplaced! Disaster or opportunity, you decide.

Ok so the bubble has burst and you have lost your job or you are about to. It’s a disaster! How could this happen to you, to me? So What! That’s right so what, you are not alone. Get over it and do it now! It is what you do now that sets you apart from everyone else and gets you started down the path to your next big thing.

I said your next big thing and I mean it…this is your chance, your opportunity to seize the moment and make it work for you.

Right now business organizations around the world are doing what you should be doing for yourself. They are stepping back assessing where they are and where they need to go. Yes is true they don’t know for sure what lie ahead and what are the right moves. But they are secure in the knowledge that there are no answers with absolute certainty. The one thing they all do know or the organizations who have the best opportunity for success; that to do nothing and to spend too much time in the analysis of what went wrong (and heaven forbid long in self pity) is a recipe for failure!

So why not steal a page from what business organizations are doing or more to the point; why not take from the pages of various business books and apply the knowledge to you. After all are you not really in business! The business of being you, You Incorporated.

As an example lessons mapped out form a how not to book on business failures by Don Keough speaks of business failure in 11 commandments of what we should not do.
Don Keough’s Ten Commandments for Business Failure

• Quit Taking Risks
• Be Inflexible
• Isolate Yourself
• Assume Infallibility
• Play the Game Close to the Foul Line
• Don’t Take Time to Think
• Put All Your Faith in Experts and Outside Consultants
• Love Your Bureaucracy
• Send Mixed Messages
• Be Afraid of the Future

And the Bonus Commandment: Lose Your Passion for Work - for Life

Source: New York Times
Apply these to you and honest forward thinking assessment of you and where you are and what you should do to get things going; (just a sampling of how you might apply these to you)

Isolate Yourself. Have you been a networker building and nurturing the relationships along the way? If you have then perhaps your network can help you to not just find a job or your next big thing but help you to take this opportunity to find what your passion is truly and you calling.

Aside from life long personal growth and learning, and from doing good work and being good at what you do, the power of your network is the key to new and to continued success. Not enough people truly tap into the power of their existing network let alone continuing to evolve an ever expanding one.

As part of the analysis business organizations are now doing is to step back and assess who can help them. Who they know, who do they know that knows someone in banking, government, customers, suppliers, and competitors to help get a leg up for success in what ever the goal is.

Right now write down the twenty five people you know who could help you and why or how! For more on this read The Rights of Passage by John Lucht. He devotes the first four chapters of his book to personal contact pursuing the people you know and to networking, pursuing the people you don’t know.

Assume Infallibility. Honesty is the best policy perhaps now more then at any time in our lives. So step back and honestly answer what is your contribution to your current situation. If you need help here then ask those in your world who you trust and ask for open honest feedback (it will hurt but take it and learn from it). You might even consider getting some professional help by getting assessed and getting the feedback in terms of who you are and what you do well. You may perhaps learn about some of your potential blind spots. Do you have some of the traits that can ultimately de-rail a successful career.

Know thy self and become aware of your strengths and your weaknesses. Plan to do something with this. Two great resources in terms of reading about what could cost us are “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” by Marshal Goldsmith, and “Why CEO’s Fail” by David L. Dotlich & Peter C. Cario.

Hey you have been successful in the past. Part of that success was because you had a plan, goals and targets to reach, and you kept your eye on the ball. You had the passion, it was your life! Well guess what you have an opportunity to go for the next big thing in your life rather than let things happen to you make it happen.

Congratulations you are on your way…now get back at it!

7:37 AM | Labels: , | 0 Comments  

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