The Importance of Finding Work that You Love and How to Go About Achieving it:

A bit of translation to set the scene:

Firstly, job-hunting and career planning is counterintuitive! Meaning, the processes described in this article may go against your gut-feeling. The process of job-hunting is the opposite of how you might think successful job-hunters end-up in great work. 

How I met the Grandfather of Career Planning & Job-hunters:

I had the remarkably good fortune of crossing paths with Richard Nelson Bolles (who very sadly, recently passed-away)​, when he came to Brighton in UK back in 2000 to be a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Association of Career Professionals International (at that time called IACMP).

[Dick's life remembered in this wonderful obituary:
 www.nytimes.com/2017/04/01/business/richard-bolles-dead-what-color-is-your-parachute.html?_r=0 ]

His speech was a triumph of observation and spoken right from the bottom of a very, very sincere, warm, giving and knowing heart. Something of a rarity in our modern world. Someone deeply experienced on life’s journey, proficient in acts of kindness and truly and utterly authentic. A man tuned-in to his heart, who possessed a compelling sense of purpose in his life.

How I ended-up on a life-changing workshop in Oregon’s high desert:

We struck-up a friendship and Dick invited me to his famous 'Life/Work Planning Workshop' in Bend, Oregon, US of A. It seemed far-fetched that I should go to the high desert of Oregon and spend an intense 2 weeks absorbing startling insightfulness from one of the World's most gifted teachers.

He made it difficult for me not to seize upon such a fabulous opportunity. And a few weeks later, there I was, soaking-up THE most incredible experience at the almost ethereally gorgeous Mount Bachelor Village Resort​; surrounded by serene pine forest and the bluest of skies in the universe.

From 9am to 9pm every day for a fortnight I was treated to a feast of learning, self-directed study and a feast of the senses like nothing I had known before or hitherto. My life was transformed forever and it has to be the richest singular experience along my 'personal development' journey.

Technicolour Masterful Teachings:

With remarkable inventiveness, he wrote on *black* flipchart paper using iridescent chalk which howled to the senses shimmering in a magical ultraviolet light. So striking were the images hovering amid the twilit conference centre, up there in that high desert, that they remain indelibly etched in my consciousness to this day. Each interactive 'lesson' was preceded and punctuated by moving soundtracks, thought-provoking films and a profound camaraderie that enriches me still.

Self-discovery, at this depth of dive, sparked profound shared learning opportunities that possessed a transforming power. Delegates struck-up life-long bonds with fellow participants who bared their innermost reflections in their quest for life missions and meaning-filled occupations.

Dick’s reputation had attracted a team of distinguished co-facilitators from all-over the world. Each one of them watchfully attending to the details, nurturing deftly and enabling as delegates wrestled to comprehend their future. Encouraging us through those inevitable stuck moments when the senses were drowning in the vortex of intense self-enlightenment. The whole event a catalyst with such a profound and lasting legacy. It is hard to believe I can recall the experience with such lucid intensity 15 years on.

Plan to go ‘Proactive’ because ‘Reactive’ drains the soul:

I detail such context because Dick’s methodology is still not recognised as being the definitive job-hunting formula to this day. Finding one’s true calling and best-suited occupation is the greatest investment of time a human can make. The dividend lasting a lifetime. Yet so many people are utterly deadbeat, downtrodden and stuck under the burden of empty, passionless and limiting work.

Read The Job-hunters & Career-changers Bible:

The whole point of my writing is that to the vast majority of citizens still, finding great, rewarding, restorative, joy-filled, purposeful, motivational, stimulating, contributory and uplifting work appears esoteric, untouchable, unattainable and far-fetched.

Furthermore, the vast majority of dissatisfied workers and people out of work, continue to hunt for work in the complete opposite way that hirers hunt for workers. If you are having difficulty visualising this *fact* of the labour market, please take a look at page 8 in the 2015 edition of Dick’s world-famous best-seller, ‘What Color Is Your Parachute?’ (click on link) and take a few minutes to drink in the wisdom contained in this pivotal page’s diagram.

So many people hunt for jobs in Reactive Mode. They waste their energy on applying to adverts, filling-in application forms, firing-off CVs and résumés, investing hours and hours signing-up to job boards and websites that – statistically – are so unlikely ever to bear fruit. Let alone sate their craving for a job that reflects their talents, gifts, experiences, career attributes, values and aspirations.

Finding Great and Meaningful Work doesn’t just happen:

It takes time, energy, sacrifice and conscientiousness to land yourself a rewarding career. In signing-off this post, all I ask is you take the time required to produce your self-inventory. Cultivate your ‘career language’. Populate your vocabulary with terms that best describe your skill-sets, talents, experiences and achievements to date. Audit your career-related achievement stories.

Gather all your personal information together into one place. Organise it. Extrapolate this data towards your future and pin-point precisely the job in the labour market which generates the brightest spark when dovetailed with your vocational DNA.

Once you have managed to choose your own path – and you are excited by it – radiate, disseminate, proliferate and transmit the process. Let your newfound enthusiasm infect your friends and family in order that they too can thrive, grow and take joy from their personal development.

Take joy from Work. Spread the word. Enhance the world.

Let’s get more people into great work.

It is a cause worth investing in.

Here is a great YouTube film of Dick explaining the concept of self-inventory: click here.

Reference: http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/

#WorkAesthetics

#CareerDovetail

#Vojo

Self-Preservation - A Sense of Wonder at Work:

Okay, everything is certainly not okay. You just lost your job…

I’ve been an outplacement consultant and career coach since 1998. During this time I have worked with hundreds of grieving people bereft of their livelihood. Many people say that what I do must be awful; with a look a bit like they’re talking to the taxman. The truth is that I love what I do because I care about people and want to minimise the blow.

Up to the age of 32 my career caused me a lot of pain. I had no clue about how much pain I used to be in until I discovered my calling. And looked-back. I’ve written mountains of stuff on my own transformation and how my life turned around. The point is, I empathise. I know how it feels to lose your job and fear for how the bills are going to be paid come Friday.

I’m working with a guy at the moment who has had the sword of redundancy over his head for months and months. It's painful to watch. The firm thought it might be kinder to give him a lot of advance warning because of the many decades of loyalty he has invested in them. In reply he has mirrored their ‘kindness’ and works tirelessly to make sure the department he runs doesn’t miss a beat in order that he can walk away in a few months’ time with his head held high, conscience clear, dignity and integrity intact.

During the many decades since he joined The World of Work has changed beyond recognition. A big part of the relationship between employee and employer used to be loyalty; sometimes referred to as the ‘psychological contract’. It basically states that a paternalistic and caring employer will provide pay, job stability and nurturing environment in return for conscientiousness, reliability and commitment.

About 10 years ago, possibly longer, younger workers entering employment could see the instability of employment and recognise a power-shift arising from the huge skills shortages at play in the labour market. This meant the market changed and younger workers would take whatever training and development they could from one employer and leverage it with the next. I found their skills of assertiveness compelling. Whereas in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s a good CV/resume might have one or two employers listed, a good CV in the 2000s will show many along the making of an enviable career trajectory.

Traditional sense of loyalties can therefore be misplaced:

If you are being made redundant take stock – this is happening. And it is not your fault. But your company don’t think they need you anymore. Perhaps they’re on hard times too. But they cannot afford you. Or your role has become obsolete. Similar to the anguish of losing a loved-one, there comes a time to move-on.

The focus of your concern is now upon you. Who else is going to help you? Metaphorically-speaking, the plane is depressurizing, the oxygen mask has dropped in front of your face and it is time to act calmly and put it over your mouth to ensure your survival.

Fear is a natural instinct:

Recognising your fear when losing your job is an integral factor in your ability to survive the trauma. You can only manage what you recognise. Fear of the unknown is a natural phenomenon. And this is the nub of the point of this blog: Fear is a symptom / Convention is the cause.

Convention is a particular belief among people as to how things should be done; or how we ought to behave. Conventions are helpful when teaching a child to stay out of the road – because collisions with cars are extremely dangerous. Conventions are unhelpful however when they perpetuate an unhelpful myth or obsolete attitude.

The Number 1 job-search convention is that we must get straight back to permanent work as quickly as possible. Part of this convention is that we’ll be happy to do anything even if it means doing a menial job many rungs in the ladder below where we stepped off. Another part of this convention is that we just fire at whatever jobs are available in the labour market and something will land.

Because fear can act like a set of blinkers on our strategy, it can massively limit our potential for success. Because of our misplaced loyalty, when we’re investing time helping our employers when we should be investing in ourselves, fear is, again, distinctly limiting. We must exercise our decision-making muscles, accurately identify our career attributes and the corresponding job target. 

As I’ve written before and I’ll no doubt write again, The Path of Least Resistance is about tuning into to ‘wonder’. Don’t wander, wonder. Getting future hirers inspired about us involves triggering rapport. There is no better mechanism for sparking rapport than passion, enthusiasm and wonder. And this must be evident in all of our self-marketing materials: CV, covering letters and interview scripts. 

Could it be that you’ve gone stale and have forgotten what it was the filled you with excitement in the workplace? Did you ever enjoy a sense of wonder in your work? Now is the time to get in touch with your working passions and infect others with your enthusiasm. If you don't do it somebody else will. There aren't limitless number of jobs available; the labour market is set to become increasingly Darwinian. 

Craftsmen and craftswomen never consider the long hours they invest in their work because they don’t consider applying themselves to what they love to do to be work. As our economy melts-down and the dole queue lengthens the Number 1 antidote is to tune-in to what it is that you love to do. Learn to be selfish for a time and invest in your own wellbeing. Should the time come, and you have to help others, they will only thank you for ensuring you are fit and well.

Connecting with Hirers is key:

However, every now and again stop to consider whether it is realistic for you to connect with the 'Wonder of your Work' and work for someone else at the same time. Often, discovering wonder in our work, involves working for ourselves. Although this is indeed a challenging path to tread; sometimes it offers a ‘Path of Least Resistance’. The rewards for courage, independence of thinking and the ability to take charge of our destiny can often justify the risk.

Here again, we will need to understand the presence of 'Wonder in our Work' if we are to succeed. Rest assured, if you can do the painstaking detective work to identify your authentic vocational identity and take it forward to a place where it will harbour and grow, you will have given society a sense of wonder that will likely remain your legacy long after you are gone.

Look around you, what is it you wonder at? What caused wonder before, will again. 

Soul Destroying Job Search

For those who can remember the bad old days, I left school in 1980 and endured the failing youth employment policies of 'Youth Employment Programmes' and the dreaded 'YTS' (Youth Training Schemes). For those younger readers, I’m afraid ‘the system’ for getting young people into work was about as ineffective as it is today!



It would be hard to think of a more lacklustre and innovation-less process to inspire young people about their career plans. Yet here we go again using a sausage factory approach to solving the challenge of getting more NEETs (a young person not in education, employment or training) into the workplace and off welfare payments.


Back then, I remember working as a so-called Assistant Professional Golfer 'thinking' I was on a credible training scheme, but basically I was working 60 hour weeks for £12.50 and being taken for a ride. When I look back it would be hard to imagine how a young person could be taken advantage of to such an extent, but policy-making seems to be cyclical or we have very poor memories as to what does and doesn't work.


What doesn't work is churning young people out of school without a viable and sustainable career plan. I've argued with the entrenched attitudes of old-fashioned teachers in common rooms stating that young people go to school to learn, not to develop a career plan or decide what to do with their lives! I'd say we're teeing young people up to fail if they leave school clueless about where their strengths and weaknesses lie and exactly what career attributes they possess to offer a future employer. Yet I know school after school who churn-out young people ill-prepared to even make a decision, let alone have any real idea about what goes on in the world of work outside. They are effectively ‘institutionalised’ and it can take them years to adapt to the realities of the world; which comes as a huge shock to many.


Fair enough, the careers profession has failed miserably to develop a credible presence in society as all people ever do is talk about who awful their career guidance was when they were at school. Well, I need to tell you, my early career guidance may have been dreadful, but I owe my livelihood to an inspirational Careers Adviser, who I have thanked in posts elsewhere. (My main aim has been to develop a tangible and non-esoteric approach that gives people traction quickly; without the touchy-feeliness associated with many career guidance approaches.)


In terms of Soul Destroying Job Search, we need a career plan if we're to stand a chance of jumping the obstacles between unemployment and a worthwhile job…and surviving this trial of attrition! People derive meaning in their lives in a vast diversity of ways. No two people are alike! Self-confidence stems from self-understanding, self-acceptance and formulating the ability to see oneself doing well in the world.


As I bang on and on about, people with a sense of purpose in their lives are charismatic. They attract positive attention from others. They're simply attractive. It's not rocket science, yet thousands and thousands of people get into their mid-life and have no clue about where their career attributes and strengths lie.


On a day-to-day basis many millions of unemployed people, the world-over, sit in front of a pc screen in search of a job. Statistically, this is rarely where their next job lies. I’d suggest switching computers off and going and talking to people about how they made their career decisions. How did they uncover their career strength? What skill do they make the most use of on a daily basis? What do they like least about their job?


If you ask your contacts for a job, you might risk embarrassing them. If you ask them for job-related information - especially the people who demonstrate a passion for their work - then there are few people who would turn you down.


The exciting stuff happens when you find someone who shares your interests, shares your passions for work and you have career attributes in common with. These are the potential gatekeepers to helping you land your next job. You won't have to ask, they'll recognise the right potential in you and do what they can to assist. A shared interest can form a powerful bond.

Your challenge is talking to enough people to get you to the person who shares your interests and can help. But rest assured, it has to be better than banging-your-head-off-a-brick-wall, in isolation, at home with your pc, in solitary confinement, with no money. This is what I recognise as a 'Tail Spin'!! And it is a pain-filled, bad news story for everyone.

Job Feed My Soul

For many, many years I was despondent at the complete and utter lack of meaning in my career. And I mean despondent. The expectations of others seem to cloud my judgement. In retrospect, I recognise that I was tetchy, arrogant, unfulfilled and in a constant state of unrest.

As my own story goes I lost my dream job at the age of 32 and slammed into the buffers. I became a resident of ‘Skid Row’ and found myself in an utter and complete tailspin. There were one or two occasions where I questioned whether I could even go on. Life was bleak and the day-to-day outlook did not seem to be improving. I was in a rented bedsit, on the dole, on the breadline, living on baked beans and struggling to cope with being what I regarded at the time as ‘down-and-out’. How damaging we can be to ourselves.


In the depths of my despair someone I had previously regarded as a friend for life, a person I held in hugely positive regard, asked me what felt like being a failure. I thought I’d hit rock-bottom, but I soon found out I was wrong. This kick in the teeth knocked me even further down. I saw my ‘friend’ through a different lens. That was December 1994. I remember it well because I lost my job, reputation and roof-over-my-head on 4th December.


I’ve written about it at length elsewhere, but in the interim period I received my first bona fide career guidance interview with an inspirational Adult Career Adviser called Mike, and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude to this day. His guidance compared to that of an alchemist as he took me from the depths of despair and skilfully guided me towards my renaissance.


By the end of the first week in January 1995 my life started to show green shoots like the snowdrops hale the end of dark winter months. That metaphor still works for me all these years later as I watch for the early Spring. The same way my heart skips a beat when I see the first swallow arrive on my horizon. It is these uplifts that feed our soul. Somewhat ironically, I had been accepted onto a postgraduate diploma in Career Guidance and started the rebuild process and germination of the person I knew, deep down, I had the potential to be.


As my friends who knew me before my transformation will tell you, finding my ‘calling’ changed me deeply. And I emphasise that I use the word ‘calling’ in a completely non-Lutheran sense. (I’m no longer a conditioned Christian, as regard myself far more a Holist in my outlook.) What I mean when I say calling is that I tapped into the innate vocation that lives within each and every one of us. My life transformed because every faculty I possess, every life experience, every career attribute, is drawn-upon and channelled daily in my job and repays me the dividend of meaning and fulfilment.


Having done my year’s postgrad I went on to my Probationary Year as a Careers Adviser, relocating to Surrey and working in three mainstream secondary schools and one special needs school. I tapped into a new-found self belief as young people were mirroring my enthusiasm for my job in some form of virtuous circle that spread the dividend outward.


Gradually, the traction came back into my life. In truth, the traction probably entered my life for the first time! As now I had a vocation my identity and self esteem became more strongly anchored. I found where previously people might have regarded as arrogant and argumentative; I became increasingly comfortable in my own skin, peaceable and contented. No longer feeling hunted and forever in pursuit of fulfilling my potential in some far-flung fantasy. I had tapped into my innate strength and it was feeding me.


Nowadays, I see no greater pleasure in my life than guiding others towards tapping into their inner vocation and uncovering the career attributes that can feed their soul. You can see the ‘before and after’ in their eyes. I know what the experience felt like in my own life; like the dark in a cave and the beach on a summer’s day – total contrast! With and without.


I see the eyes of meaning-filled people sparkle with a perpetual intensity that is infectiously charismatic and nurturing; especially craftspeople building tangible products with their hands. These are especially wholesome jobs – the epitome of ‘Career Sustainability’ – career identities that will last for the long haul of a lifetime.


Whereas, people in dead-end, meaningless jobs, and those unfortunate people not to have any work in their lives, can seem soulless and empty; with tapping into the affirming powers of meaningful work instilling that all-important sense of purpose and virtue being the remedy to our quest for the meaning of life.


Working with what you’ve got within in you is invigorating on every level. It truly uplifts the soul and builds the life. The toughest part is placing one’s trust in others to help decode what your calling is because part of being human is that we’re not always very skilled in recognising what we’re best at. Our filters don’t work this way .


Only the weak and faithless perpetuate their lot by never seeking help. The process of reaching out and connecting builds stronger bonds in stronger communities; the more meaning in the community, the more peace everyone enjoys. Life goes on, sustainably.
Feed your soul and others’ today – tap into your career attributes – help others tap into theirs - purpose feeds all of us and lifts our souls.

Job Search SB 6

The Path of Least Resistance:

When you are looking for a job make sure you understand exactly what your career passions are. It is no good moaning about rejection when you haven't taken the time to do the detective work necessary to identify your working talents and career attributes, such as - skills, strengths, interests and values.

The shortest journey to you getting a job that you truly love, where you outshine your competitors on the interview shortlist, is to decide what you do best - and do it.