PuzzleMania

I love jigsaw puzzles.  I love the problem solving, the kinesthetic learning component, the visual and physical manipulation of pieces.  Not surprisingly, I come from a long line of jigsaw puzzle doers.  My parents, their parents, and maybe even their parents (but I don't know for sure) were all big puzzle people.  We could all stay up half the night doing a puzzle due to our compulsive need to finish it.  Now, I've happily discovered that both of my children love to do puzzles and are quite adept for their ages.  They both do puzzles well beyond their age groups, and what can I say?  I'm a proud mama!


As I was doing a puzzle with my two year old son the other day, I asked him, as he tried to put two non-connecting-yet-closely-related pieces together, "Do you think that we need to find another piece to put in there first?"  While the puzzle pieces may have been part of the same image, there was one piece we needed to find and put in place that would connect the first two original pieces.  I remembered asking my daughter the same thing about "connector pieces" when she was first learning to do puzzles, and enjoying the moment when she actually understood what I meant.

Career design is kind of like putting together a puzzle, which is one of the many reasons I enjoy the field of career coaching.  Oftentimes connector pieces are just what my client needs to complete his or her career puzzle.  For example, the gap between a crummy job and a perfect job (sometimes within that same company) may be just a puzzle piece away.  This piece may take the form of a position that serves as a "connector piece," one that the employee knows they just have to muster through temporarily to get a chance at the holy grail:  the dream job. 

In the past month I've had two friends that have gotten their current, fabulous career paths through that exact method.  The connector jobs they took within their same respective companies were anything but their dream jobs (although in each instance they were only in them about 3 months or less.) They had taken these connector jobs solely for the potential of reaching the next level.  Their bosses needed to see that they could handle certain tasks before being given more responsibility.  And now they are doing exactly what they'd always wanted to be doing.   How awesome is that?!

But putting those pieces together took very critical actions, the four most significant I will mention below:

1.  Forethought.  They had to know where they wanted to go eventually.  This is big picture thinking coupled with self-knowledge.  (They were following the Rules of Engagement!)

2.  Relevance. The connector piece or stepping stone, if you prefer, had to have some relevance to the eventual position they were seeking.  In one case, this in-between job had managing functions; in the other, the role had less to do with function and more to do with getting to know and work with the right people.  In both cases the connector job provided their employers with evidence of their abilities and character, so that they could then make the mental leap of hiring them to do more sophisticated and specialized jobs.

3.  Determination.  My friends had to muster through what really were a pay-your-dues type positions.  They temporarily took on roles that didn't utilize their best talents or interests; however, they knew the sacrifice would be worth it, as they needed to show their employers they would do whatever it took to help the company.

Now, truth be told, one of my friends absolutely hated her connector job.  The other friend didn't necessarily hate her in-between post; however, she was constantly nagged by the feeling of being extremely underutilized intellectually and ability-wise. Sticking with those pieces of the puzzle required every ounce of self-confidence to know, deep down, that they were capable of more than that job.  As one friend said, she had "to trust the universe," which eventually reimburses us for our personal vision efforts.  Both women had to accept that their temporary position was not going to use their strongest attributes and preferences, but that it would lead to a job that did use those talents.  They also had to be prepared to deal with the reactions of others.

Often, when taking on a connector job these outside reactions typically fall into two forms:

a) belittling attitudes (i.e. when you are doing a job that any Joe Schmoe could do and people treat you as if that is ALL you can do) and 

           b) negative feedback (especially when you are having to do tasks that show your weak spots.)


4. Courage!!! This is the grand finale that must come in order for all of the sacrifice to pay off.  Once the women put in their time in the middle job, they each had to muster up the courage to ask for the coveted position.  They had to take the risk that their employer would reject their proposal.  However, not surprisingly, neither employer did say "no."  Rather, both women received a big fat "yes" and negotiated better benefits than they'd even hoped for.

Bottom line:  if they'd skipped any of these pieces they would have not been where they are today.

So instead of getting frustrated that you are on a road to nowhere, entertain the possibility that you may just need a bridge or connector piece to get to the road you really want to be on.  Perhaps it's within the same company or organization.  Maybe it's a matter of going to another field and then linking the two.  Who knows?  It's your puzzle to work on. 

(And mine, if you care to partner up with a puzzle lover such as myself.)

Steve Jobs: Doing What You Love

"I don't think of my life as a career," he says.  

"I do stuff.  I respond to stuff.  That's not a career- it's a life!" 

(As told to Stephen Fry, Time Magazine April 12, 2010)

I have found some great insight by looking at a wildly successful person who had an amazing life journey.

The following is a recording of Jobs' commencement speech to Stanford University graduates.  I find it incredibly inspirational, so I thought I'd share.  It's crystal clear that his passion for technological innovation and doing what he's always loved has sustained him through extremely difficult times.  Stay with him through the 15 minutes.  It's worth watching!



Now here's to hoping he gets to go back to doing the "stuff" he loves to do.

Rules of Engagement

Let me first clarify the title of this post.  I am not talking about:

a) scoring a rock on your left ring finger, or
b) combat procedures, or
c) the current sitcom on CBS.

Rather, I'm talking about self-awareness of what engages us.

Yeah, I know, not as amusing a topic. But my knowledge is very limited when it comes to:

a) proposing
b) use of military force, and
c) free time before 10 pm.

I do know that we have a responsibility to give ourselves tasks that we find engaging.  Instead of looking to others to engage our talents, we need to understand that as mature adults, it is our job to realize what engages us and makes us tick, so to speak.  If we want to be engaged in our work and lives in general, we must identify what our ideal day should entail.  If this self-assessment (or assessment with the help of a career professional) doesn't happen, entitlement may take over.  In career terms, "entitlement" is the belief that others should know what we need to be engaged and feel rewarded. You know, kind of like asking those around us to read our minds... and tell us what we want to be doing.

Of course, I'm sure as you read the word, "entitlement" many of you over age 30 thought I was mainly referring to young people- from twenty somethings and college students to teens on down. But then, I am hoping, you smacked your forehead and realized that it was me talking, and, knowing how I love screwing around with traditional notions and giving conventional wisdom a good kick in the butt, you realized that NO demographic was safe from scrutiny!  

(Mmmmwwwwaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha....)

Seriously, I need to get out more.

The media and many adults perpetuate the idea that young people, especially those of well-to-do parents, are the kings and queens of entitlement.  While I can see some semblance of that notion in our American society, (much of it brought on by modern day parenting philosophy which dictates we must cater to our kids 24/7) I perceive entitlement to be found in all generations, socio-economic classes and industries.

For example, whenever you have an employee of any age who is what many managers covertly call the "BMW"  (Bitch, Moan and Whiner) of the workplace, you've got someone who, among other things, feels they are entitled.  They want management to give them tasks that suit them without doing the necessary digging to discover what those tasks should even be!  Instead, they assume management should just know what their strengths and preferences are and in turn make them happy and engaged at work.  The ball, they believe, is in their manager's court, not their own.  I'm confident you've all worked with, managed or dealt with someone who fits this description.

Part of this problem, I will concede, derives from the fact that none of us are adequately assessed when we are young.  It is pretty rare for someone to truly know what they are really really good at and what can engage them on a daily basis.  This information needs to be gathered via assessments at an earlier time than, say, middle age, when the majority of people finally seek career counseling and coaching! Did you know, the typical age of a career client is 40-50 years old? This is when people begin realizing  that they want to know how to feel engaged vs. disconnected to their work. 

In light of the above phenomenon, I am working in my small, individual way, to change that general practice of "let's just wait and see if some true calling epiphany hits me in the head some day."
That was my so-called strategy when I was younger, whereby I subconsciously told myself that "it (my calling) will just come to me eventually... by trial and error... or whatever."  But eventually has an uncanny way of turning into decades and how many decades do we really have to do what we're really good at and enjoy?  Therefore many of my professional goals entail helping young people discover their inherent talents and preferences before they begin making meaningful decisions such as what activities to pursue, classes to take in high school and where and what to study thereafter.  Making decisions from a place of self-actualization rather than self-doubt will lead to engaging work throughout their lives, not to mention the fact that hard, engaging work is fun when we are intrinsically motivated!

We'll see how long it takes for these rules of engagement to stick.  I'm hoping it's just around the corner... or we'll have more and more BMW's to contend with in our workplace.

And, just to clarify, I'm not referring to:

a) the YUPPY car, made by
b) zeee Germans, filling up
c) office parking garages.

Eating, Praying, Loving, and Finding Myself in Quebec City

I recently had a marvelous time in Quebec City.  C'etait mon premier fois (it was my first time) as the Quebecoise would say.

Now I present my version of Eat, Pray, Love for this charming city:

I found myself Eating many delectable macarons, crepes, and croissants (I'm sure there is another carbohydrate I imbibed, but it's not coming to mind... just to my thighs.)

I kept Praying for my son to go to sleep in our quaint- and shared- hotel room.

I was Loving this enchantingly beautiful, French-speaking city.

Our trip to Quebec, while only two hours by plane, allowed me to reconnect with my passion for other cultures and experience a new city, all the while sharing my love of the French language with my children.  Speaking with native French speakers reminded me of how much I relish conversing in the graceful, musical language I studied in college.

Which leads me to the essence of Eat, Pray, Love, the best-selling novel adapted into a film starring Julia Roberts.  I read the book when it first came out and saw the movie in a movie theatre, which was nothing short of a miracle.  (If you'll recall, I am always way behind in popular books and movies.) While the movie didn't enamor me quite like the written word, seeing the story unfold on the big screen took me back to the marvelous premise of Elizabeth Gilbert's book:  finding oneself by connecting, enjoying, and experiencing life in all its richness.

When I first read Eat, Pray, Love I enjoyed it immensely.  The widely popular autobiography details the author's journey from the time she leaves behind a dead-end marriage to her global quest for self-discovery.  Although I've never traveled solo around the world for a year or experienced a dead-end marriage (and for the latter I am thankful!) I definitely related to Gilbert's multiple passions:  self-exploration, cultural and language immersion, traveling, writing and savoring delicious regional cuisine.  Most importantly, the book also brought back visceral memories of my own need to stretch myself- my life, my career, and my talents.  

Flashback a few years ago when I was in the midst of my acting career.  Although I was faring quite well in the Washington, DC acting community, I feared that I was becoming a bit too comfortable in my surroundings to grow as an artist.  I knew I needed to discover whether I had the ability to make it in New York City, and therefore decided to get my feet wet in the acting community up there. (Note- If you are an actor reading this, especially an actor living in New York, I'm sure you snickered when you read the "get my feet wet" phrase.  Because, seriously, how can you just dip your toes in the biggest acting pool in the world?)

Moving to NYC wasn't an option so I did what I could:  I rented a New Jersey sublet from a former Raoul in Phantom of the Opera.  He lived above his landlords:  a mother, her grown daughter, and their little brown dog (or rather, "dawg") curiously named 'Cheena"  When I inquired about this unusual name they responded in authentic, Joisey-like fashion, "Ya know... as in a mah-owww-kah-cheeenah.  She's like the collah of cawwfee."  Thus, the name Cheena.  (Or was it 'China?  I never asked.)

Needless to say, Manhattan and all of its opportunities overwhelmed me, but at the same time I actually did, at first, feel amazingly revitalized.  I saw so much talent and vibrancy in the New York theatre.  I met and collaborated with amazing people.  I was accepted into an advanced level acting class and loved it.  I began stretching myself artistically, and tested the waters by auditioning for everything I could.   I abandoned my comfort zone of staying at home in my safe and well-known environment in order to venture out into the unknown.

However, with all of this stretching and vibrancy and talent and wetting of feet, comes another, even more profound experience: humility.  (Yeah, that one hurt a little.)  Because I realized that a key ingredient to making it in The Big White Way was not only dogged persistence and extraordinary talent, but also sustainable, consistent, solid performance.  For example, while I have, in the past, knocked the socks off audiences, and made them laugh or cry or experience personal revelations,  I really came to understand that the best actors do this EVERY DAY.  Whereas I could look at my years as an actor and singer and recall killer performances, I honestly couldn't say that I could give killer performances sustainably like those who perform at the highest levels.

(Photo Credit: Rebecca McAlpin for News)

But you know what else I discovered besides the talent threshold?  When I filled my days with acting alone, I felt I wasn't living up to my potential in other realms of my life.  I wasn't helping people like I wanted to.  I craved making a direct and noticeable difference in other peoples' lives.  I also genuinely missed the other things that gave me energy:  painting, writing, teaching, traveling or cooking up new recipes.  I learned that I had a terrible time narrowing my playing field to just one sport, so to speak.  I realized I liked variety, plain and simple.  Perhaps, if I'd studied performance religiously for years and started in New York at a very young age, I may have caught a break by finding a specific niche.  But that narrow focus has never, and will never, motivate me.  That fact I cannot change about myself, nor do I want to.

I also instinctively sensed that I needed to use my brain to solve complex problems for other people, even though I had no idea at the time what kinds of problems they should entail.  (I realize now it was my diagnostic reasoning that was lying dormant- more on that in another post.)  All I knew was that I was spending way too much brain capacity figuring out which monologue or 16 bars of music I should use for my next audition.  I reached a point where I knew that the day-to-day life of an actor could not sustain me for the rest of my life.  Not to mention another year.

So, after time spent "getting my feet wet" and experiencing life as a New York City actor, I eventually headed back to DC to resume a new path.  This new life entailed a career in coaching, new little family members and a restored love for an incredible personal life rich with friends and family.  I didn't go to the ends of the Earth to find myself like Elizabeth Gilbert, but a $25 ride on the China Town Bus and a meager sublease helped me do some serious soul searching. 

I realized that you can "find yourself," whether you are married, single or a parent; live in New York City or Topeka, Kansas.  If you begin to ask yourself some honest, hard questions and face your fears of going to the next level in your career, you begin to assume personal responsibility.  Committing time and energy to self-discovery reaps unlimited rewards. Once you dig deep you'll find treasures lying within you, talents that have gone untouched for too long.  It may not be what you initially seek, but it will be you.

Growing in one's career takes so much courage.  And because of the risks involved many people choose to stay put.  They remain safe and sound in their cocoon of complacency, pleasing everyone but themselves.  Choosing this route may seem easy in the short term, (and we ALL do it at one time or another) but in the end these same individuals will probably find themselves depleted of energy and enthusiasm.  Unfortunately, those who feel stuck may wrongly blame family obligations for squashing opportunities .  It's very easy, and so very common, to use others as scapegoats for their own career failings.

While I can definitely say that, as a mother of two young children, there are real time and energy issues that constantly arise, I must remind myself to find ways to grow personally and professionally in the life stage I am in.  So I try to push myself to take important but sometimes scary initiatives in my business. I intentionally engage in activities and networking that benefit both family and career (and thereby save my sanity.)  I try my best to "find myself" daily by carving out time for myself and my work whether my kids like it or not.  That way they learn that my passions are an integral part of who I am, in addition to being their mother.  

So, alas, going overseas to Gay Paree may not be in the cards right now, but fortunately we gave Quebec City a try.  And brought les enfants.  This time around, anyway.  Next time it's just me and the Mister.  That seductive little city exudes way too much romance for a family trip every time.

So What the Heck is a Career Anyway??? Part IV: Alternative Career Lifestyles

In a recent post ("Part II", to be specific), I mentioned that we could all benefit from thinking of careers in broader terms.  Specifically, I pointed out that while some successful careers may take the form of one straight and narrow path, others are not so traditional.  This post addresses the non-traditional form that certain individuals may choose to take: a combination of paths creatively woven together to satisfy different interests and skills.  As I said before, while different people are drawn to different kinds of paths, ideally all of these paths bring our innate talents and interests to life in the form of a career.  

That being said, I've decided that I would now like to give the latter, non-traditional description the title:

"Alternative Career Lifestyle."

Say what?!!

Yes, I am declaring a new wave of thinking about careers, so much so that I am putting it in bold print and quotation marks. This new wave, which I will shorten to "ACL" (and not to be confused with the ligament found in the knee) describes the individuals who push the envelope of what it means to be fully satisfied career-wise and live well in the process.  These people don't care what "The Book" (i.e. the general consensus) says about what careers look like;  rather, these folks just do what they are:

a) good at
b) drawn to and
c) NEED to do, even if it's not what conventional wisdom dictates as acceptable. 

And no, I'm not talking about doing anything illegal.  I am sure you can find other blogs about that.  What I am referring to is simple:  Do what you need to do, even if it doesn't make other people say to themselves, "WOW!  (S)he has one really important/lucrative/respectable/hoitytoity/pie-in-the-sky/enviable/intellectual job!"  Because, really, who cares if your career path doesn't fit into the 40+ hour work week of say a doctor/lawyer/engineer or whatever else society says is the ultimate in job titles? 

At least I don't, if that makes you feel any better.

So the following are just some examples of people who lead alternative career lifestyles:

1) A person who has a multitude of interests that are better met with two or more part-time, but individually fulfilling jobs (such as a person whose main function or common thread is teaching/advising, and feels compelled to teach and advise in multiple demographics and settings.)

2) A parent that works for him/herself from home, intermittently dividing his or her time between a professional business and family business (i.e. running to the dry cleaner on the way to a client meeting and stopping on the way to that meeting to deliver a forgotten lunch to their child's school.)  
This same individual is less concerned with being the primary bread winner and more committed to raising a family while devoting some coveted hours to personal, career-oriented work.

3) A person who, for one reason or another, physically cannot work a full-time job outside the home but still needs and wants to contribute his or her talents in a non-traditional way.  (Paid or unpaid.)
He or she may start a business or get involved virtually with an organization and/or create a schedule of getting outside the home to work on a less-than-regular basis.

4) An individual who takes his or her training and education and inherent talents and volunteers full-time for an organization, garnering only what they need to live.  These careers may not pay anything but room and board, but many will say that giving of themselves in exactly the way they want to give is a luxury in and of itself.

5) Anyone  who writes, designs, paints, builds, acts, sings, etc. but needs to have some side job(s) that gives them peace of mind.  Having the financial burden lifted allows them to create without the pressure to perform or create for pay.  I must mention one extremely important caveat, however.  If the stability job drains the person emotionally, physically, and/or psychologically, creativity and self-esteem will suffer and peace of mind goes out the window!

All of this Alternative Career Lifestyle talk really boils down to this:  good career design doesn't always have one dimension.  Creating a career that fits your life means taking into account many factors, and talent and passion must mesh with where you are in your life at this point in time.   Therefore, "life design" more adequately describes the process I use with clients.  I encourage them to look at their lives as a whole.  Where are they now?  How is that different than 5 or 10 or 15 years earlier?  How have their needs changed?  How has their physical energy changed?  Have priorities been shuffled around, changing their minds as to what is most important to them?  I suggest they move away from the traditional practice of balancing personal and almost oppositional professional lives.  Rather, I propose that they take a more toward a holistic approach to meshing their lives, talents and careers together.

What that looks like is up to them.

Ringing in the New Year

Q:  Do you know what's bugging me about the 2011 In/Out Lists that I've read in every newspaper and magazine thus far this year?

A: They remind me of just how clueless I am when it comes to current trends.  I just don't get it.  For example, I am still trying to figure out why The Kardashian Dynasty crops up in every corner of the media universe.  I mean, what is the global fascination with this family??!!!  However, now it's 2011 and, according to the IN/OUT lists, they are OUT!  I shan't ever catch up! 

However, I am up on all 'dat career stuff, so here is my short and sweet 

IN/OUT List 
for 2011:

IN: Figuring out what you are good at doing and daring to do it. 

OUT : Settling for anything less.



IN:  Living a life that feels authentic everyday.

OUT : Living life post 5 pm and sometimes on weekends.



IN: Hiring a coach to help you do the above two "IN's"


OUT:  Doing It Yourself 

Now get out there and have a great 2011!*

(*The Kardashians would want you to, of that I am certain.)

So What the Heck is a Career Anyway? Part III: "I Seem to Be a Verb"

I asked career expert, Anthony Spadafore, renowned career coach and co-author of  Now What?  A Young Person's Guide to Choosing the Perfect Career**, about how his view of careers has changed over the years.  He has provided an insightful point of view that I want to share with you:

When I was twenty-something I thought of my career as a sexy title.  I thought it would be cool to be an electrical engineer, I wanted prestige and social status.  The driving motive for me was really all about being liked and proving myself to others.  I wanted to get the girl of my dreams and so I figured that a BSEE [Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering] would do the trick.  In essence, I thought of my career as a noun . . . it was something to ‘have’ to show off  . . . sort of like peacock feathers. 

Looking back on it, I was just like a zombie in The Walking Dead, but with good Italian clothes.  I had a condo and a nice car and much of my free time in the gym sculpting my abs, so I was a pretty much a well-toned, clueless schmuck.  I was clueless about what I really wanted to do and the girls I dated all dumped me because I was just a shell of a dude with no substance.

Around 28 years old I hit a wall, I was going to this job that I hated and didn’t care enough about it to learn and stay on top of my field.   I was stumped and felt totally trapped.  I got exactly what I thought I wanted, yet I was miserable and could barely drag myself out of bed.  I got physically and psychologically sick and had sort of a meltdown.  I couldn’t fake an interest in my field anymore.

 All this shifted when I began to think of my career as something to ‘be’ versus something to ‘have’.  I came across this great quote by the inventor, R. Buckminster Fuller, that inspired me:

 “I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category.

  I am not a thing — a noun.  

I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process — an integral function of Universe.”

Nowadays, I think of a career as a way to express my natural abilities and just be what I am.   I seem to be a verb, and so my sense of a career is to do what I do best.  I love guiding people, popular science writing, and coming up with novel ideas.  Since a verb plays an integral function in service to the sentence it lives in, I had to come up with how my abilities could serve the immediate world around me.  I discovered that I wasn’t the only one stuck on figuring out their career direction.  So, I’m a verb on a career to solve a problem I really care about.  I think that’s a fun way to live, to find where your talents intersect with what other people have a need for and are willing to pay a little something for it.

Thank you, Anthony, for your insight!

**http://www.amazon.com/Now-What-Persons-Choosing-Perfect/dp/0743266307/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1294539793&sr=8-1