Ten Years Reflecting Life Changes

In honor of the tenth anniversary of September 11th, I thought it would be nice to reflect on the magnitude of that day and how it has impacted your life and the choices you have made and are making to this day.

That tragic day was a wake-up call. If you were like me it sent me into a tail spin. I felt helpless and wanted to do something, but I feared we, as a nation, were out of control. I felt there was little I could do to get a real sense of control over that horrifying ordeal. The sense of fear and anger was taking over. But the overwhelming feeling was, “Life is so precious”.

I was not alone. Many people I talked with told me similar things. We had discussions of how to seriously re-evaluate priorities. We considered things like: What is truly important to me? What do I have control over in my life? What do I need to change in my life? Life’s too short to keep putting off something that has real meaning and purpose.

I would like to invite you to revisit the events of 9/11 as an opportunity for a challenge. Think about if there were things in your life you wanted to change. It might have been building stronger relationship with those you love. You might have wanted to shift the direction of your career. You simply may have wanted to laugh more or find more meaning in your everyday activities.

Let me encourage you to summon some of those memories and answer the following questions. After that day:

• What did you feel was truly important to you?

• What did you feel you wanted to change about your life?

• Was there something you felt you had been putting off that you wanted act on?

Now let me ask the most important question of them all … Did you do anything about it?

In a time where everything feels like it’s out of control, what can help us get back on track is to understand there are things in our lives we have the ability to have control over. Even if that objective feels insurmountable, taking one step at a time in that direction will help you live a more authentic, genuine life, one filled with fulfillment and worth.

There is the real challenge, what action – what one step can you make to move yourself to get you on your way? Then ask yourself the same question tomorrow, then the next day, etc.

Are You Thriving … Or Just Surviving?

Let me ask you a question, are you sailing along in your career? Or does it feel like your sail is only half way up the mast and you’re struggle to get anywhere? Do you feel you are performing at less than your maximum potential? A recent Gallup Poll said that 74% of Americans are disengaged with what they are doing for a living. The sad reality is, when it comes to their careers, the majority of U.S. workers are not going after what is meaningful to them at all. Rather, they are jumping through hoops, doing what somebody else wants of them. These unfulfilled souls function like organizational robots. They go through the motions of their day unchallenged and unfocused. As a consequence, they merely perform whatever it is they are supposed to be doing, putting in no more effort than what is required of them. Hummm … sound familiar?

In their heart they can feel the desire for something more. This purposelessness begins to eat away at their spirit like a cancer. They crave an opportunity to make their mark on the world, to make a difference in life. They hunger to be energized by doing work they believe in, something that has personal meaning and purpose to them.

Make no mistake, this kind of lack in fulfillment and personal driving force is dangerous. Not only for the individual but for the company who employs such people. Without a sense of purpose, one will march along on a programmed treadmill that results in a less then peak performance. The question remains then, how do you discover that environment in which to thrive? How do you uncover your greatest potential and create a clear vision for your individual strengths?

But here lies the challenge. It’s been my experience that when I ask my clients to tell me how they have made a difference, I typically get a black stare. Most – as high as 90% can’t tell me. In my opinion, that’s the starting block. Sadly, they really do know, but they simply haven’t taken the time to discover it, take ownership of it, then put it into a game plane for their career path. Without doing this, there is limited success in leveraging one’s personal potential.

Understanding one’s personal history of contribution, how one has made a difference is the key. I have an exciting and easy way to implement a solution

You have to DIG!

Discover Your Gifts

Inventory Your Successes and Accomplishments

Give Your Gifts

Discover Your Gifts

First, I suggest you go back through your history and write down a list of things in your work history that have brought great satisfaction. I call these your Love Tos vs Your Have Tos. What are your favorite and most meaningful activities? Think about situations you felt you “hit it out of the park”; you were “hittin’ on all cylinders”. What are some events that have given you a true sense of fulfillment? The answers to these questions are the clues to your gifts. Once you bring these gifts into focus, you will begin to see a pattern where you are thriving.

Inventory your Successes and Achievements

From this list identify your top five situations, ones in which they felt you’ve made a difference. Each achievement needs to possess the following qualities:

1. It needed to be one of your favorite experiences, one which you thoroughly enjoyed doing.
2. You met and overcome a challenge in the process.
3. You felt proud of the outcome.

Next, take each of these top five experiences and create what’s commonly known as a C.A.R. mini story. These stories should be based on three criteria:

What was the Challenge?

What kind of Action did I take?

What were the Results?

Once completing these initial exercises it’s not uncommon for someone to feel a sense of real accomplishment and genuine pride. You should be able to begin to describe, qualify and quantify your self-worth … how you make a difference.

Give Your Gift

Put these newly recognized gifts into action. A gift is not a gift if it is not given. Once an individual understands how they have made a positive impact they have a stronger sense of purpose. They take more ownership of their contribution to the overall success of your company. Yes, they become more engaged.

Now, let me pose a few questions. First, do you think if given the chance to discover your unique strengths, and know them inside out, upside down – backwards and forwards you know you have a track record of making a difference - would you feel better about where you are going with your career? Second, do you think your company might be the direct benefactor of your newfound fervor? Now if you learn to leverage these assets, you are on the path of creating an environment where you can thrive … not just survive. I will talk more about how you can do this with 30, 60, 90 Day Vision and Strategy

© Susie Mathews 2006 All rights reserved

Our Returning Vets are Great Hires

Time Magazine is showcasing what I've been saying for a long time. Our returning Vets from Iraq and Afganistan are "The New Greatest Generation". Highly developed leaders that know how to focus, overcome and get it done. As one soldier noted, the life-and-death decisions he made in warfare make the decisions in the workplace pretty easy by comparison. Check out this video, but more - read the article when you can Aug. 29 2011 edition. To all my Vet friends, Love ya - thank you for your service once again. Hire a Vet if you get a chance. You will be glad you did.

Heroic Images: TIME Meets the New Greatest Generation - Video - TIME.com

www.time.com

Live Life Large

Well, we can live life large ... full of love and happiness ... or ... we don't. Forgive me, I think it's that simple. Love the life you have... Choose to make the journey - down your life path, if not, it will raise it's head later. Then it might be too late. LOVE,... love if you can, and love everything about where you are personally. Then things... magically fall into place. I always love that.

Love you.

Suz

Office Drama

Someone wrote me this last week and shared some concerns with their organization and how it was starting to affect his performance. He asked for my advice. I see this as “Office Drama”. Here’s part of what he shared.

Here are the issues: The company I work for is a very big operation, which involves a lot of people. I'm an introverted type of person; I like to mostly keep to myself. But I admit maybe that hasn't served me well. However, I can honestly say there are some problems here that I might have little control over. Most of the other people in my department have bad attitudes towards the company and also towards men (there are 4 other people in my department- all women). There is not a day that goes by when I don't hear them ripping on men, sometime bashing them pretty bad. They are pretty vocal about it. The men issues, maybe they should talk to the men in their lives directly, but they don't seem to care that I hear it.

Thanks,

R

Dear R,

It's seems you are facing a very - perhaps all too - common issue. Sadly, people are often, way more concerned about what others are doing than what they, themselves can do. As a result, this “office drama” can bring the performance of many down, including, it appears one’s own. My recommendation if you feel you need to say something – be direct – but not confrontational. Something like, “My gosh, you all really have it out for us guys. I hope I’m not on your list.” This can let them know, you are sensitive to what they are saying. But more to what you can, my advice to you is to take these my earlier comments and look honestly at the only person you have direct control over ... yourself. What I mean about that is, if you worry what others are doing - thinking -saying and let it negatively impact your performance and your contribution to the success of your company - you are simply putting yourself at risk ... at risk on many levels, way too many to go into in this response. You only can control your attitude about how you want to make a contribution to the success of your organization. That is why they hired you; frankly that’s why they hire anyone. I would encourage you to keep this notion in the forefront of your mind. Ask yourself - constantly- what am I doing today - right now, that will make a positive difference to this company? How can I go the extra mile in the quality of my work? You do that and everything else will fall into place. You don't - well there are consequences for people who get caught up in the drama and they find them self not pulling the rope in the right directions. Don't be a consequence.

I hope this is not too hard of a message to read, but I feel it's an honest reply to your concern.

As always, take care,

Susie

Are You Talking to the Right People? - Informational Interviewing

Informational interviewing is a wonderful way to learn more about this pathway opening up in front of you. I ask people, “Now would you buy a thousand dollar business suite without trying it on first, to see if you like it, if it’s the right color or if it even fits?” I would guess probably not unless you have so much money that it doesn’t matter to you if you waist it. But if you are like most of us before you hand over that kind of money you want to make sure it’s going to be something you are going to be happy with. Well why wouldn’t you want to do the same thing with how you are going to make a living. Don’t you want to know, without question, that you’re going to enjoy this thing at which you’re going to be spending over 50% of your waking day… maybe more? Here’s my point. If you spend hours, maybe days in finding the outfit that makes you feel like a million bucks. Don’t you owe it to yourself to take the time to really get a feel for what this new career is all about? How does this career look on you? Does this profession make you feel like a million bucks?

You want to talk with people who are doing the kind of work you are interested in doing.

This is how you would go about the information interview process.

First, create a list of people who would actually do the kind of work you are interested in. Ask your friends or relatives if they know anyone who is in this field or does something similar. You stand a much better chance meeting and talking with them if you use their name as a referral. Such as,

“Hi my name is Kathy Smith and Carol Jones suggested I give you a call. She told me you’re in (the field you are interested in). I am very interested in learning more about this field. I’m not sure if it would be a good fit for me, that’s why (Carol) suggested that I contact you. She thought you would be a good source of information and you could give me a better understanding about the opportunities in this area. I was hoping that I might make an appointment with you and spend twenty minutes to find out more about what you do?”

If you are a job seeker and you specifically know what kind of career field you are looking for and just want to meet people who might be able to assist you in connecting with decision makers consider this approach. One thing I would like to caution you about. The person you want to conduct an informational interview may say something like, “Sorry, we are not hiring right now” and dismiss the meeting. So you want to be careful to share with them you are exploring option within the career field and you would value their opinion. This phone or email introduction might look like this:

“Hi my name is Kathy Smith and Carol Jones suggested I give you a call. She told me you’re in (the field you are interested in). I am very interested in learning more about options in this field, that’s why (Carol) suggested that I contact you. She thought you would be a good source of information and you could give me a better understanding about the opportunities in this area. I’m not asking if you’re hiring. Rather, I would enjoy the opportunity to meet you and I would truly value your opinion. I was hoping that I might make an appointment with you and spend twenty minutes to find out more about what you do and get your insight on the industry?”

If you are sheepish about calling up strangers and asking for a help, I suggest you take one of the above paragraphs and use it as your script - type it out on a piece of paper in large bold font so that its easy to read. Of course exchange you name and the name of your friend. Then practice it over and over out load… it makes a huge difference from just saying in your mind. If I were to pick a number I would say thirty times, because when giving a speech to an audience, professional speakers are coached to practice their new bit thirty times before they present it when it really matters.

If you don’t get names from friends or family, don’t… I repeat … don’t skip the informational interview process. Find someone to talk with. You can look in the Yellow pages or here’s something I always recommend you try. When you don’t know anybody who knows somebody you want to talk to I suggest you call a local Chamber of Commerce (three or four in your area for that matter) and let them know you want to do some networking. You can tell them you want to interview someone in your field of interest. Sometimes, they might invite you to attend a networking meeting, which is great. If they extend this invitation, I would strongly suggest you try to attend. But due to the nature of Chambers being attended by business owners, they may not invite you to the meeting. Don’t be offended; simply ask if they might recommend anyone who is a member that you might be able to connect with. More times than not they will help you and give you a name of a member and contact information. If you are lucky and get invited to a meeting, don’t hesitate to call this person in advance and tell they were recommended by the Chamber and would you be willing to meet them at the next Chamber meeting? I would not suggest you attempt to interview this person at the meeting, its best to just build a foundation in your new relationship then ask for a second meeting.

Once you have scheduled an appointment you want to prepare questions that you will want to cover. Because you want to be able to hit your pressing concerns you will want to write your questions down in a notebook so you don’t forget any of them. I have prepared a list of questions you might want to consider using. However, this is only a guideline – if you are meeting for only 20 minutes you may realistically have time for only four or five questions. So think this through carefully.

1. Tell me about your role with this organization.
2. Can you share with me some of the kind of projects / responsibilities you have?
3. Tell me about how you decided to get into XYZ field.
4. What do you feel were some key choices along your career path that has brought you to this point in your career field?
5. What are some of the most surprising things you find in this line of work?
6. What are some insights you have for the future of this field?

This is where you might give the person a 30-second overview of your background then ask something like …

7. For someone with my history, what might be some opportunities that you might see as a good fit?
8. What would be important for me to consider as I explore this field?
9. What are things you think I should invest my time and / money in developing myself a career in this field.
10. What are things I should not waist my time or money on?

Although all these questions are good ones for you to fold into your own collection, the one you do not want to leave the interview without is the following. This is the most important question to ask.

11. Do you know anyone else with whom I should talk that does this kind or work or something similar?

This is the most important question to ask because you want to talk to a number of people, the more the better.

Here’s a hint on establishing and building good report with the person you are interviewing. I know this interview is ultimately to help you get a better understanding of the career field. But when you are doing the interview, make the interview all about them. I now refer to this as “Brown noise 101”. It sounds stuffy, but it’s really very effective. Your conversation doesn’t want to come off like it’s all about you, at all; you don’t want to appear selfish, “I want to do xyz, what can you do to help me?” and here’s why. Most people are simply put off by people who seem to be me, me, me. Rather, people love to talk about themselves, it makes them feel important, they like to talk about their achievements; sharing their vision just makes them feel good. So, I highly recommend you let them feel good. If you can approach this dialog from the point of view, “Wow, I really think what you are doing is great. I want to be more like you”. You give them a bit of a taste of celebrity. And the more you put them in the spotlight, the more they will tell you about who they are, what they do and how they did it. Plus, they will become more of a champion for you. They are more willing to help you in other ways. When you ask for a referral, they are feeling so good about you because you make them feel so good about themselves they will be happy to give the names of other people you should talk to. Why, they might even pick up the phone and call them and tell that person, they want them to meet you. It happens all the time. The miracles begin to fall into your lap.