Career Dovetail Autumn 2018 Newsletter: The Power of Your Intention, Prizes & The Mechanics of Love!

This month's newsletter informs readers about the seasonal trends we need to be aware of if we are to manage our careers effectively and be one step ahead of the rush for jobs and work as we spring towards the year's busiest periods in the rush towards Christmas and the New Year. Plus, I talk about thought-provoking ideas on loving your work, recognising patterns when developing career strategy and news that I am offering free workshop places in my new career strategy and self-marketing programme targetting specific groups in the labour market: women-returners, fresh graduates entering the World of Work for the first time and newly-redundant workers facing the ordeal of career transition and reinventing themselves. Career Dovetail Autumn 2018 Newsletter: The Power of Your Intention, Prizes & The Mechanics of Love!

Read about Duncan's Eureka Moment, Recognising Patterns in Your Career Data & The 'GDPR'!

Happy Bank Holiday weekend to ALL of my connections. It gives me great pleasure to provide you with my first Career Dovetail newsletter for more than 3 years. Believe me, it's been one hell of a journey to get here. I have strived to making its reading worth your while. In it there are the highest of highs, lowest of lows and who knows where this journey in words of my life will take us. Why not read and find out, eh? Should my story strike a chord, please do ensure to share it for me, please. Your Career Dovetail Newsletter.

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

Is Enlightenment The Journey or The Destination?

In the Context of Work, Career and Occupation, What is Potential? 

Where does it lie, past, present or future? 

How would we know if we ever fulfilled it?

Therefore, building on that theme: 

...the quality of outcome in realising one's potential - and generating value; which is a form of positive feedback...

... is relative to the desire to seek answers.

Over/

Striving: One's ability to wonder at the conundrum and formulate answers likely to zero-in on relevant answers.

= Meaning

= Joy

= Fulfilment

= Self-actualization

Enlighten-meant is in the journey, not the destination.

Have a career plan. 

But don't make the mistake of deferred gratification. 

En-Joy today.

www.facebook.com/careeradvise.me/

www.linkedin.com/in/duncanbolam/

www.careerdovetail.com

www.careeradvise.me 

My stab at poetry - "Good being a good Being, being good!"

A #Career #Poem about the joys, benefits and shiny stuff that happens when we're in the right #Job!

I am not poet, as you can tell. But here goes...!

#nationalpoetryday #thinkofapoem

Good being a good Being, being good!

The bird’s wing flashes,

The body dashes, skyward, giddiest heights abashes,

And always, a beat our hearts do skip,

Purity of the instant fleeting,

And so it is, fusion, function, form and flow in meeting.

His hammer falls,

As Blacksmith smashes one more glinting metal epicure,

That’s where his cash is, brought buy his bashes,

His passion zinging through his very being,

Vocation quest’s his singing zest, borne from his best.

Her suture mends,

As surgeon tends tissues livid,

Grand ennobling gifts fly fixing life’s deepest slashes,

Pressure gravid, the ‘getting it right’ systemically vivid,

Her principles innate instinctual, succinctual, effectual.

There’s never any falling in to one’s intended calling,

Tis’ always built betwixt heart, head’s and gut’s alliance,

That’s where your passion lives,

It is always good being a good Being being good!

Delight-filled fusion of fabric, form, function and flow.

Hey Human Being, you need to be doing to be being,

Veiled in ‘being’ it’s the knowing that’s your plenty, purpose abound,

So see those Beings , their #WorkAesthetics and ‘Vojo’ in-the-know,

Watch how they go!

Plan to know, then go, go, go! 

Duncan Bolam © 2015

The Campaign to Find Everyone's Purpose starts here with this thought-provoking short film:

Purposeful people promote prosperity!

Why is purpose important? Should we be afraid if people do not know their purpose?

Duncan Bolam warns that global economic forces and pace and scale of change facing citizens attempting to plan their careers is a ticking bomb which society ignores at its peril. Efficiency-hungry, austerity conscious organisations appear to be removing the need for skill from many areas of the labour market; either through mechanisation, downsizing, automation or outsourcing labour to emerging economies. He warns it is a vicious cycle; which ultimately leads to chaos, conflict and crisis borne from crisis.

These forces do not bode well for anyone seeking to maintain a steady income and a developing career; especially our younger workers. Many of whom cannot: get a start, are ill-equipped to navigate this fast-changing labour market, invest in a sustainable occupation, or simply don’t possess the career attributes necessary to market themselves positively in a highly competitive, globalised and shrinking labour market.

Throughout his 18-year experience, 90% of the people Duncan Bolam has met through his job as a Career Coach & Redundancy Counsellor are either completely in the wrong job or disengaged from their work. Worse still, as growing trends demonstrate, they are not working at all. Yet, his undying belief is that everyone he has ever met has an occupation locked inside of him or her and identifying a person’s purpose in life is good for all society’s wellbeing, socioeconomic and otherwise.

Once discovered, this sense of meaningfulness, motivation and occupational identity will not only feed, clothe, shelter, sustain, invigorate, develop and excite the individual citizen, and their families, critically, the process also meshes society together and constructs bonds upon which communities thrive.

With terrifying numbers of people unemployed, with the average number of job changes in a career in excess of 18 different jobs - all of Society's bridges into - and across - ‘The World of Work’ are falling into one socioeconomic crisis after another. Big business is perceived to care little about the quality of ‘fit’ between employee and their work.

Managers de-layer more and more workers out of their businesses in their ceaseless pursuit of profit. Many organisations outsource key skills overseas. And there is a risk our workforce is becoming de-skilled as a result...

Resultantly, if not at risk of being permanently unemployed, facing a lifetime on benefits, workers have less-and-less pay in their wallets. Traditional anchors that sustain a civil and secure society no longer function and communities implode into chaos, turning neighbour on neighbour, haves against have-nots, and the desperate in to dependents. Pride lost. Purpose gone. Driven to desperation.

People who are encouraged to plan their careers through better self-awareness, knowledge of their career attributes and insights into the labour market, contribute more tax to The Exchequer, are less likely to commit crime, cost the welfare state less, place less of a burden on national health services and comprise a more valuable, agile, resilient and mobile workforce.

Our governments have dismantled career development mechanisms and our education systems rarely prepare young people for real-life, sustainable and meaningful careers that will last them over the long haul between school and retirement; whilst making a positive contribution to the communities they live in.

With so many people unemployed, a growing population, more disaffected young people struggling to get a start in life, ineffectual public sector guidance systems and a profit-hungry private sector, Duncan warns that the system is broken. Society needs to stop and re-think what it will do with our citizens if we’re not going to help them discover meaningful work.

Organisations, business leaders, stock markets, our education systems and society as a whole cannot go on de-skilling jobs, removing meaning from workers lives, legislating against ‘skills mastery’ and generating labour market uncertainty. If we refuse to accept that EVERY person in our world has a right to a fulfilling career, meaningful work and a genuine stake in society built upon.

Politics aside, if nothing else, consider how much better off all stakeholders are for getting more people into rewarding, motivating, purposeful and secure jobs. If we as a civilised society focussed on eradicating unemployment and sharing prosperity, consider the cost of running the welfare state that would be saved and the benefits to us all achieved through increased competitiveness and harmonious communities.

* In future films, Duncan will describe his vision for full-employment, a sustainable working model and his campaign to eradicate unemployment. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF CLARITY IN YOUR CAREER STRATEGY VOCABULARY:

If you're developing your career strategy consider your use of language carefully. You will achieve greater clarity and find it easier to maintain focus if you build a set of descriptors that market the real you.

Call it a 'phrase bank' or 'compendium of terms' that clearly define your career attributes; ready to be used at a moment's notice. Pre-arming yourself in this way instills purpose and conviction.

Remember, be precise and grammatically astute. 'Creativity' is not a skill. It is a quality, a trait, a state-of-mind. Arguably, a value. (Values fuel your desire to deliver your skills.) 'Creating' is a skill. As a rule, skills end in -ing. They are verbs. Doing words. Opportunities to do 'your thing'; which will underpin your vocational identity.

Another self-marketing principle is that verbs should be in the past tense on your CV/Resume. They end in -ed. For example, "Designed a new database using Excel which managed our stock inventory and led to a 17% increase in the organisation's ability to ship orders to customers and fulfill expectations 99% of the time."

In your phrase bank of career attributes, consider the ingredients in your strategy. Or, as I call it, your 'Career Dovetail'. Alongside skills, these will include: values, qualifications, experience, competencies, achievements, quantitative results, publications, the list goes on.

On the other side of your career strategy formula, define/decide what other parameters influence your options. Categories such as: the geographical area you might work, supply and demand of your chosen career in your local labour market. Your lifestyle choices and costs relating to them will determine wage decisions. Your social network and willingness to relocate.

All these strategic ingredients will feed into the clarity of how you manage your career and your ability to leverage opportunities when they arise.

One final point, opportunities are seized upon. They don't come to you! Hence, the need to be prepared.