Please don’t forget the people of Haiti. They are depending on us.

No matter how empty our wallets may feel during these trying economic times, it is slight compared to the needs of the people of Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. I urge you to please give to the charity of your choice today so they may receive the medical aid, food, and water they so desperately need.

Dissatisfied with work? Guess what? You’re likely the cause.

I’m wondering what has changed in the last 22 years. A new survey by The Conference Board (www.conference-board.org) found that only 45% of us are happy with our jobs. This is down 16% since their first survey in 1987. But wait. A 2005 survey by the same firm shows these recent stats to represent only a 5% decline in job satisfaction (U.S. Job Satisfaction Keeps Falling) during the past 5 years – and we’ve had a tough economy to deal with.

What I found very interesting is that The Conference Board’s 2005 report cited rapid advancements in technology and employees’ changing expectations as the culprits behind the 2005 results. In their 2009 survey, the why-and-wherefores of the decrease are a bit more vague with John Gibbons, program director of employee engagement research and services at The Conference Board, stating: “Challenging and meaningful work is vitally important to engaging American workers.” This, I presume, means more workers are not finding their work meaningful or challenging, hence the dissatisfaction. Sounds a bit like the rationale behind the decline in job satisfaction for their 2005 survey.

In this era of amazing technological creations, new ways to produce and distribute goods and services, and nearly every company in the world competing on a global basis, it just doesn’t make sense that workers are not “feeling” challenged. (I will get to “meaningful” work in a minute.) More than at any time in history, organizations are challenged. In fact, there are so many challenges and threats it is a wonder most of ‘em just don’t shut the doors. So, how can it be that workers don’t feel any challenge in their work?

Here’s what I think is the answer: The workforce is simply not up to the challenge of solving problems.

In the old days, machines needed to be invented to do work that was being done by human hand or animal (read: printing presses, cotton gin, automobile, telephone, assembly line, locomotive, and so on). Once they were created, someone needed to figure out how to get it out to the masses. No viral videos, tweets, or Facebook testimonials to help spread the word; just a legion of people, going from place to place, in an attempt to sell their products.

Contrast this with Lauren Luke, the 27 year-old single mum from Britain whose YouTube make-up application instruction video that received 4.1 million hits granted her instant fame and her own cosmetic line. Were we without the Internet, it probably would have taken her as much time to launch her cosmetic line as it did Max Factor to get his brand off the ground and running. (In case you were wondering, it took Max Factor 16+ years to launch his cosmetic line, from his first sale at the World’s Fair in St. Louis in 1904 to launching his brand in the 1920’s.)

No, the difference today is that, as a workforce, we just don’t know how to solve problems. We rely on someone or something else to do the thinking, marketing, and selling for us. When those things fail us, instead of rolling up our shirt sleeves and finding ways to solve the problem, we point the finger at others. On the flipside, we are also “helicopter” parents and prevent our children from learning from their own mistakes. We guide, cajole, and coddle them until they are completely bereft of any critical thinking or problem-solving skills. We then turn them out into the workforce and expect them to excel in a world that needs critical thinkers and problem-solvers. Come on, people.

As for not having meaningful work – well, that one is also on you. If what you want is meaning in your work, you need to find work that means something to you. Trust me that the work an organization does mean something to its owner, shareholders, or Board of Directors. If your company's work doesn’t hold any meaning for you, find some place that does. End of your dissatisfaction.

Attract money and everything else you want in the New Year

There is something miraculous about demarcation points, where some things are left behind and new things are on the horizon. 2010 is one of those years where fantastic things are now in the process of becoming a reality – provided you believe they are. This notion may run counter to what we read and hear about in the news. But as the saying goes, what you dwell upon expands. Consequently, if you dwell upon the bad, it becomes larger just as when dwelling upon the good also enlarges. So, if what you think about is your lack of love, money, or a great career, guess what? You will continue to attract more lack of love, money, or a great career. Want to attract love, money, or a great career? Then you must think about how one or all of the things you want are currently being drawn to you. Keep that thought in your mind. Banish, completely, any thoughts that bad things will happen or that something stands in the way of you getting what you want.

In 1963, Dr. Joseph Murphy’s groundbreaking book, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, offered the timeless secret of how to attract everything you want into your life. Today, this secret still holds true. He wrote:

Whatever thoughts, beliefs, opinions, theories, or dogmas you write, engrave, or impress on your subconscious mind, you shall experience them as objective manifestation of circumstances, conditions, and events. What you write on the inside, you will experience on the outside.

Like me, I am sure you know people who have it all – health, wealth, and happiness. Are they really that much different than you? The answer is: likely not. The only difference, then, is that they expect the best to happen and it does. Remember always: What is written on the inside will be experienced on the outside. You have a choice of what you write on the inside and once you do, your subconscious takes over and makes certain that what you ask for appears. I wrote about this in my last blog but as we enter a new period, it needs to be stressed now more than ever. As you think about what you want, not what you don’t have, you will begin to see miracles. People and things will show up exactly when you need them to have them realize what you envision. It is then especially important that you are careful for what you wish because as you dwell upon something, it will come into realization. Here are some helpful tips for guiding your subconscious mind to attract what you want:

1. Be specific in what you want. If you want a new job, write out exactly what you expect from the new job. The act of writing will help you better formulate the work you want to do and the things you do best. Review it, amend it, and when it reads exactly how you want, spend 3-5 minutes a day envisioning how you feel in your new job (or a living in a new city or home, or being handed that award). Feel it as it is happening.

2. Concern yourself only with the fact that everything is currently coming into alignment to produce the results you want. Do not worry about the details as to how it will come to be but dwell only on the fact that what you want will be.

3. Pay close attention to chance meetings, a statement someone makes, or something you read or hear about. These are opportunities that are leading you in the direction of your desires.

We are the brink of a new year and a new era. You have, at this very moment, the power to attract what you want into your life. When you allow your subconscious mind to do the heavy lifting in your life, you will begin to see the miracle that is your life.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Mind your thoughts: You’ll get what you think

I’m often struck by how much energy one person will put into their thoughts of doom and gloom and then watch how doom and gloom are repeatedly manifested in their lives. At the same time, and under the same life conditions, another person will see only the best that life has to offer and those expressions are realized and without any other rationale as to why these things should come to pass except they believe they should; no evidence to support their thoughts, just the belief that good things will happen to them.

Why, then, if the key to getting what you want is rooted only in your belief you should have what you want, more people don’t believe?

One reason is likely that many of us live with falsehoods told to us by others; falsehoods told not out of maliciousness but of beliefs ingrained by others. When the bad invariably happens because we have always believed they will, we then have the evidence to support that the belief was, in fact, true and, since it happened to us, we can now confidently pass this “truth” onto others. However, the counter is also true.

Many years ago, I took a commission-only sales job with a company that just felt right despite there not being a set salary. I asked a new colleague what I could reasonably expect to earn in my first year. She said I would earn $80,000/year without breaking a sweat as she had done in her first year. In less than 6 months, I was earning more than $9,000/month and having a fabulous time. At my former employer, I was earning $36,000/year and everyday was a struggle.

Did I learn some new sales techniques, have a better product to sell, or did the company do a better job of promoting itself than my former employer? Nope. We sold the same products, I managed customers in the same way, and the company did not do any more or any less promoting than my former employer. The difference was that $80,000 per year was the new starting point. I could no longer see $36,000/year as being realistic earnings and from that, everything flowed. Whatever was needed – contacts, introductions, meetings – to produce this outcome was materialized. I can offer no other explanation as to why this happened except that I was told I would earn a minimum of $80,000 per year and to do that, other things had to happen and they did. It was pure belief the goal would be achieved.

We are shackled by the falsehoods of others. Their limitations, their beliefs, and their worries are passed onto others as “truths” with their poor outcomes proof of what is not possible. Often this is because they don’t feel they are worthy of what they want. This unworthiness, however, is created by another person’s belief they they, themselves, are not worthy so that this must be the state for most humans. Do you see the pattern? But worth is not founded in some universal lottery where there are winners and losers. Everyone is worthy of achieving whatever they dream possible. The “trick" is in believing whatever you want is already yours. There is nothing more you need to do.

You can learn a lot from a cathedral in Barcelona

On a trip to Barcelona last year, we visited La Sagrada Familiá, a cathedral 127 years in the making. Work on the cathedral began in 1882 and continues to this day. I saw a connection in this for those who are looking to ramp up, change, or otherwise begin a career and are probably wondering – when is it ever going to happen? Consider that if it takes 127 years and counting to build one cathedral, the 6, 8, 12 or even more months it may take to create or refashion your career is a mere drop in the time bucket. But, hey, building something spectacular and meant to last takes time. There’s just no getting around it.

This is difficult for those who are supremely cognizant of time and see every minute of not doing something we love or fulfilling our needs as just wasting time even while busy doing the very things you need in order to move in exactly that direction. If you were building a house, you wouldn’t chide yourself for taking time to prepare the land, pour the foundation, construct the walls, and so on. If you didn’t do anything of these things you wouldn’t have a house.

These, then, are the days in which you are laying the foundation for your La Sagrada Familiá.

What is Your One-Hundredth Second Advantage?

Only a mere one-hundredth of a second produced Michael Phelps’ win over Serbia’s Milorad Cavic at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Phelps came in at 50.58 seconds and Cavic at 50.59 seconds. Phelps was later quoted as saying he started to hurt during the final ten meters but pushed himself just that tiniest bit more to victory.

This got me thinking about the close wins that happen when people compete for a job, a promotion, or anything else where a decision must be made as to who will be the winner based upon a personal advantage. For job candidates, this is something everyone fears – that an opponent has one teeny, tiny advantage that allows them to be the first to “touch the wall” and you only a breath away. The question then becomes:

What one-hundredth second advantage do you have?

I recall when I competed for a job against 57 candidates; all of them from inside the organization. Before my interview, their one-hundredth second advantage was that they were already “in”. However, in my pre-interview research, I learned the company had a new CEO who believed they were under-utilizing their resources to reach out to more customers. Realizing that if those current candidates knew how to maximize their resources, they already would have, this knowledge gave me the one-hundredth second advantage when providing examples of how I turned minimal resources into amazing feats of sales success. Game over for the 57.

In the case of interviewing for a new job, it is likely you won’t know, going in, what your competition has to offer or the company’s pain so you won’t know if you have a miles-long or one-hundredth of a second advantage. Pre-interview research can help in some instances but, failing that, ask the interviewer. Consider that Michael Phelps knows his competition for each race. He has the ability to study his competition and prepare accordingly. He knows his competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, the lay of the land (pool), and, as a side note, takes care with what he wears into the pool.

You can do the same thing. Ask the interviewer how many people are competing for the job. Of those competitors, what are the things they like best and the things they like least about that person or persons? In addition to learning how you need to position yourself to take that one-hundredth second advantage, you will also learn what the company values in its employees. If, for example, the interviewer tells you that your competition will bring their former employer’s customer list to the new job and you find this to be unethical, you may want to save your time and energy for a race that really matters to you.

Want to achieve a goal? Set a date.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.

~ George Bernard Shaw

Relying upon the old stories you tell yourself as the reasons why you are not able to get what you want may give you some comfort but it will never get you to where you want to go. While it may be difficult, at first, to give up those stories, it is entirely possible and people do it every day.

One very powerful way is to set a target date for achieving your goal. Companies, for example, know that sales goals are what often drive committed salespeople. They set their target numbers each month and the salespeople go about working toward that goal. How people achieve their goals by the target date is part mystery but also part common sense. Personally, I like the mystery because it means something larger than me is out there working on my behalf whenever I become crystal clear in my goals and set a target date to achieve goals. I don't need to understand it, I just need to accept it.

I can’t explain the ethereal forces behind this process but only know that the more I focus on achieving a specific goal within a specified timeframe, things begin to happen to move me in that direction. It happens every time without fail.

At first, the things that happen, the doors that open, seem to be nothing more than coincidences; and, perhaps, they are but there is a synchronicity to these events whenever my goals are aligned with my real purpose. Quite suddenly, the things I focus upon enlarge and offer opportunities to help me reach my goals. It is not without hard work, mind you, but, somehow, it doesn’t feel like hard work.

What happens on the common sense side is that once a goal is established and a target date set, you begin making decisions that steer you toward those goals. Often, when goals are fuzzy or you don’t have a hard timeframe to accomplish, poor time management occurs or you may pursue something that makes you feel like Sisyphus, of Greek mythology, eternally pushing a boulder up the hill only to have it roll back down and have to start all over.

So, the formula is pretty simple by starting with the end (goal) in mind:

1. Become really clear on what you want to achieve. If looking for that right career, state it, in writing. Writing it down is very important. But, make sure it is something you really want to do. Don’t worry that it may seem out of reach or is in an industry in which you don't have experience. The forces at work in the universe don’t care about any of that and will produce opportunities and deliver information to you for achieving that goal.

2. Set an “achieve by” date. This gives structure and a sense of urgency to reaching that goal so that, again, the universe aligns what you need to deliver by that date.

Do these two things consistently and your life will change.

The shotgun approach may hit a few ducks but it won’t land you the best career

OK, so you’re firmly entrenched in a work transition and might even be considering the fact that you will never, ever have another job. So, you take another stab at the job hunt, pull out the 20-gauge, and begin shooting at any job that moves. Interestingly, you might actually hit something and, if the stars and planets align, it could be even be your dream spot. More likely, however, is that you’ll be blasting your résumé off into thin air without so much as even nicking an employer. This is when your critic appears and begins telling you the reason you haven’t bagged anything is, quite simply, because you’re a lousy shot.

Don’t listen yourself!

Great careers don’t just happen by … well, happenstance. Great careers are crafted, molded, and designed. First and foremost, however, they require planning. And lots of it. If you find you’re not making the headway you want in finding the right spot for your unique talents, you will want to check out the The Five O'Clock Club.

Established in 1883, The Five O'Clock Club offers job seekers the tools they really need to source and land the job they want. But understand that landing your best-fit career requires, first and foremost, aiming at the right opportunities before pulling the trigger.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Job or Career: Before You Can Get Either, You Have to Know the Difference

There’s a job crisis going on alright but, for many, not for the reasons you may think.

No doubt there are fewer jobs today and if you are looking for a “job”, you could certainly run into roadblocks. Yes, it is frustrating to spend hours writing cover letters, revamping your resume, and sending it all to recruiters and companies, often receiving little more than a cursory acknowledgment via email. I do believe this is happening and empathize.

I then read Stephen Viscusi’s online article (posted on The Ladders), Why You're Still Unemployed One Year Later and a Q & A on LinkedIn for the question: Are Recruiters still getting 100s of resumes for job openings? Viscusi’s article is an in-your-face dose of reality about why he believes someone may be unemployed for an extended period while the people posting to LinkedIn’s Q & A offer a different take.

Viscusi’s view: If you’re unemployed it is because your attitude stinks.

General consensus from LinkedIn’s Q & A: Many people are applying for jobs for which the HR person or recruiter has deemed you wholly unqualified to perform.

Though, for the latter, and as a contributor to LinkedIn’s Q & A, Jonathan Lome, from Human Capital Management - ACA Talent put it quite succinctly:

I have definitely seen an increase in people applying for open positions, and I have also noticed more and more people applying to positions who completely lack the skills sets the position requires. I think that these days, people are not necessarily looking for a career (although many claim they are), instead they are looking simply for a job to pay the bills, so they apply to whatever they see open.

Pay attention to Jonathan, people, because he hit the nail on the head when stating that many people are looking for a job instead of a career; which may also explain Viscusi’s argument that after a long time looking for a job instead of career your attitude can begin to rot when you can’t find a “job”. The problem, however, is that “a job” and “a career” are frequently considered the same thing. They aren’t. But, if you don’t know the difference, how do you go about finding either one?

Well, for starters, get educated on the differences. Are you looking for something, as Jonathan wrote, just to “pay the bills”, or do you want to become part of an organization where your interests, skills, and talents are exactly what are needed by very specific employers? (Note: No matter how brilliant you may be in one arena, this does not mean you can automatically perform any arena.) This is where understanding a key difference between a job and a career can really help: For a job, you can learn the skills, on-the-job, to perform the work. Depending on the complexity of the job, it may take you days or weeks before you learn enough to make an impact on the company. For a career, it is years of prior learning and honing your skills that will make a near-immediate impact on the hiring company. (For beginning careerists, of course, you often have to take a lot of 'jobs' before your work-life shapes up as a career.)

The second and, perhaps, most difficult thing to get past in finding your right work-life, be it job or career, is trusting that you can get exactly what you want; even in this economy. But you need laser-like focus to achieve this. You must shut-down the internal chatter that tells you all the reasons why you can’t get what you want and trust, simply trust, that what you put your attention on will grow. Don’t believe me? Well, consider the more you fret about not finding the right work, the more you don’t find it. This principle also works in the reverse, in a positive way.

What do you have to lose?

Your resume stinks and other things that keep you from getting what you want.

We’ve all heard the cliché, competition is fierce. When it comes to this job market, it may feel as though this really is true. But is it really that competitive out there or are you not stepping up to you’re A-game when going after what you want?

Try this cliché on for size: Cream always rises to the top.

I can’t tell you the number of cover letters and resumes I’ve received over the years that did nothing to compel me to read beyond their “objective”. Quite frankly, I already knew their objective was to get a job when they sent me the resume in the first place so reiterating this at the start is just a time waster. Beyond this, it was the tedious and painful reliving of every copy they ever made, phone call they ever placed, or report they ever wrote (three to five times over when working at multiple companies) that had me toss their resume aside in favor of a resume that would tell me what its author could do for my organization. Sometimes I was successful in my search and other times, not.

Competition will always exist – in good times as well as bad. That’s not the issue. The problem is that too many people believe that what worked for them when companies needed to hire warm bodies is the same thing that will work when real competition exists. A Google search of the term “resumes” produced more 5 million sites. It is not that information on how to write a resume is scarce; it’s that, for the most part, many job hunters simply don’t want to do what it takes to rise above the crowd. In plain English, their resumes stink. They are poorly planned and executed. Their cover letters, if they bother to write one at all, is littered with irrelevant verbiage. It tells the hiring company nothing about why they are the best person for the job. When you commit these job hunting sins, do you really have the right to complain about the employment situation?

The underlying issue is that some people just don’t want to do the work it takes to get what they want because it is hard. Spending several hours, days, weeks, and months writing, editing, and rewriting a resume for a specific job is tiresome; so it is with cover letters. But the people who invest – yes, ‘invest’ – the time it takes to write a moving resume and cover letters are often the ones who receive the call back for an interview. Not so coincidentally, they are also the ones who receive the job offers – even in bad times.

Can’t string together a sentence? Then get professional help. Just as you might not change out a carburetor on your car without the requisite knowledge, if you don’t know what you’re doing with your resume, hire someone who does. Forgo the movies, dinner out, or whatever it takes to hire the people necessary to whip that document into shape.

And, while we’re at it, take a course to brush up on skills that are non-existent or may be rusty. I believe it is de rigueur these days for hiring companies to ask that candidates have computer skills. You may think you are beyond this, what with your plethora of other skills and experience, but if they want Excel experience, give them Excel experience. Take a class.

I have seen some downright bad resumes in my time. I often wondered if the candidate would have had a better chance at getting an interview if just sending their name and phone number. A poorly written resume told me about their lack of attention to detail, that they were unable to effectively communicate, and, most importantly, they didn’t care enough about the opportunity to go the extra mile to get it. They would almost certainly bring that same attitude to the workplace.

This is not a job hunt tactic but a life philosophy. Do what you do better and more consistently than anyone else and you will find success.

Get the most out of your life: Understanding your time orientation

At a recent business mixer, I met a man who is in the business of meditation. An interesting discussion ensued, with the man demonstrating the power of simply being present. You know, the kind of activity where your focus is squarely on what is happening at that moment. All senses are engaged if only for just a few moments. I tried out this technique a couple of days later, and each day thereafter, floating in a bay in the Dominican Republic. It was, to say the least, restorative. Where my mind usually is running at full tilt 99% of the time, the act of just feeling the water, listening to the birds overhead, other tourists chattering and playing on the beach and in the water, the feel of the ocean against my skin, and the sun on my face, I was blissfully devoid of thoughts on how to fix every problem or change the world. I was just, for the lack of a better word, there.

Returning to reality, and getting the mind into full gear again, I wondered if there was a formula for balancing living in the now and thinking about the future. The daily news is enough to compel anyone to plan for the worse so that all actions taken today are to secure against doom and gloom tomorrow. On the other hand, there are those where the future is something that will take care of itself with little or no effort on their part. (Whether that will actually happen or not, of course, remains to be seen.) Still, a third type of individual exists, the kind who appears to be living a rich and full present while feeling comfortable about their plan for the future. As I have a tendency to deny fun today in lieu of a more secure future – even without guarantee – I wanted to know more about this third type of person.

Your time orientation time may provide the understanding.

Those who have a future time orientation are less likely to engage in risky behaviors (e.g., gambling, aggressive investing, etc.). Their focus is on the future so that decisions today are for the benefit of the future. This sounds responsible, but if exclusively focused on the future, you’re gonna’ miss out on a lot of today. Then there is the person with a present time orientation. This is the one who lives for today, enjoying whatever comes along. While I envy this sort at certain times, making all decisions based on what feels good today could have some repercussions tomorrow.

Alright, so how to blend the two?

I’ll be honest here that there isn’t a lot out there on the perfect recipe. One article, Past, Present, Future - Does Time Orientation Influence Procrastination?, in Psychology Today, by Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, offers an interesting examination of this under the topic of procrastination. He writes:

To the extent that we find ourselves thinking things like, "My life path is controlled by forces I cannot influence," we are now aware that this thinking may contribute to our task avoidance. Similarly, if we find ourselves thinking things like, "I am not able to resist temptations when I know that there is work to be done," or even, "Taking risk keeps my life from becoming boring," we should recognize that we're vulnerable to impulsive decisions to delay now and pay later. I think of these sorts of thoughts as "flags." They should serve to signal us that we're about to undermine our own plans and goals. They should be signals that we need to bring our conscious awareness to the choices at hand so that we are not simply victims of our habits.

I think I will start by noticing these flags.

Get a job or manage your career?

A job is job but a career … well, a career is different. When jobs in your career field are few, however, some may feel no other option but to accept any job offer. After all, will another come along? If so, when? But is taking any job, even in your field, the right career strategy or is sacrificing in the short-term a far better option; regardless of the difficulties encountered?

While most know their personal circumstances and how far they can stretch the ole’ budget before succumbing to any job offer, I wondered how many really take the time to evaluate the long-term effect of satisfying a relatively short-term need. Money-guru, Suze Orman, and others slap the hands of people who squander their earnings without squirreling away something for emergencies but, if you haven’t, crying over spilled milk is not going to change the situation.

Still, this raises an interesting question: Are you compelled to take “any” job just to support a lifestyle as a result from previous employment? Is this enough or do you want a career that can help you fulfill your aspirations? If the latter, a job transition period maybe just the opportunity you need to get yourself on track to what you really want to do.

Career coach, Stacy Harshman, has some important advice for the question of whether or not to take any job. Quite simply: “You should do everything you can to avoid it.” Click here for Stacy's blog. According to Stacy, there are a number of reasons why you should avoid doing this but, most importantly, you need to remember that “you are the CEO of your career; therefore, you must be strategic in planning your future.” This is a large concept but one that many people fail to remember especially when panic about paying next month’s rent sets in.

Now, for the interesting and near mystical part: Just worrying about a situation isn’t going to change things just as applying for any job isn’t going to do much for your career. To bring about what you really want, laser-like focus is necessary. Think of it as shooting wildly at anything that moves. You’re sure to hit something but it just may not be what you intended. However, if you take a step back, even if for just a few minutes, and think through the process of what you are intending to accomplish, it will be easier and faster to zero in on the target and begin making a concerted effort to hit that target.

How to know what you want

In response to my last blog, Two secrets to getting what you want, a very dear friend asked: “How do you know what you want?”

Two possible answers:

1. People really do know what they want but out of fear or some other emotion, they do not follow their heart and, instead, engage in other activities (you’ve got to be doing something, right?) but none of those ever feel quite right. When this occurs, the ensuing frustration is viewed as indecisiveness.

2. A person may actually be doing what they want but think they should be doing more or something different. The perceived expectations of others (e.g., family, friends, society) is what is clouding a person’s vision of what they want or how they want to live.

For this final point, I recall the very old, very bad movie, Lifeguard. It was about an aging lifeguard on the beaches of Southern California. He attended a high school reunion, hooked up with an old girlfriend, and she convinced him that, at his age, he really should be doing more serious work and, certainly, making more money. He took a job as a salesman at a car dealership. He was miserable. He returned to being a lifeguard. The movie ended with a glorious sunset, of course, signifying all is right in his world; this last sentence being a really important point. It was right in his specific world; not Susie’s, Jimmy's, or Harry's world, but all was right in the lifeguard’s world.

It’s not that people don’t know what they want, they just the need the courage to live what they want.

Two secrets to getting what you want

Some years ago, I started AdQuick, a printing and advertising company in Franklin, TN. In the production area was a white board where I had listed each month’s sales goals. As the month progressed, I marked where we were in relation to the goal.

A funny thing happened each month – we hit or exceeded each sales goal. There wasn’t a single month when this did not happen. Reflecting upon this and other similar situations that involved goal setting, each time I set a goal, the goal was achieved. Dissecting these occurrences, I found a couple of things:

1. At their foundation was a plan.
2. When focusing on a goal, actions, thoughts, and behavior align to make for better decisions and greater creativity that move you toward your goal.

For the first discovery, people who achieve what they want usually have a plan. As a sales professional, over the years I have worked with really good, really bad, and mediocre reps. Aside from the expected personality traits of a good sales rep, such as charisma, diligence, and having a real interest and understanding of what they were selling, the really good sales rep also did a lot of planning. Each day, at the start, they knew exactly what they hoped to accomplish and structured their time so they would accomplish their goals. Thus, superstar sales reps are never surprised by their success.

Conversely, mediocre and not so good reps usually do not invest much time in planning. Time is their enemy and they float through the day reacting instead of acting. For me, there is not a day I do not conclude with a to-do list for the following day. This helps me prioritize and focus my efforts so I can keep moving forward. And I am not exempt from crisis. But once the crisis has passed, I return to my plan. Think of it as taking a car trip from New York to California. Half-way to your destination, along your charted path, your car breaks down in Nebraska. You wouldn’t put down roots in Nebraska, would you?

The second discovery is a little bit more mystical in how it happens but is, nonetheless, very real. It works much as a laser does, in that a single-minded focus on achieving a goal channels your energy so that you plan more effectively, come up with brilliant solutions, or has you say just the right thing at just the right time, among a bunch of other amazing things. It is also infectious and rallies others in your life or organization that, in turns, has them coming up with just the right solution to help in attaining the goal. Great salespeople and sales teams know these two secrets and you can put this same magic to work for you in crafting the exact career you want.

Why you should have a 4-hour workweek

We live in a world where we are measured by the hours and years we put in at a conventional company but, strangely, we admire, model, and study individuals who have “made it” by not following that same path. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?

Take Sir Richard Branson of Virgin-everything fame. Sir Richard never held a Monday-Friday, 8-5 job working for anyone other than himself. Now, I am not knocking conventional work schedules but it makes me wonder why we humans are so eager to adopt the 40-hour work week, sometimes in environments that absolutely stifle ingenuity, and then chalk that up as being a measure of success. We’ve got people being catapulted head-long toward retirement, without so much as giving a sideways glance to what’s going on around them, and not even really remembering the trip. It’s a lot like taking the bullet train in Japan. You’ll get where you’re going in a hurry but chances are you ain’t gonna’ remember anything you saw en route. Is this what we’ve become?

However, there is a bright spot here even if it seems its all doom and gloom. I once heard that whenever there is a crisis, money changes hands. I mentioned this before in another blog but I think now, more than ever, the present state of unemployment, etc. can actually result in some ingenious people turning this to their advantage. Timothy Ferris has a whole new take on this. For those of you not familiar with Timothy Ferris, he wrote the interesting book, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. A quick perusal of the back jacket cover claims: “Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan – there is no need to wait and every reason not to” and “How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week.”

I once worked for a company where my boss told another VP (actual conversation): “If Kathy never worked another day this year (it was April or May), she would still have exceeded her annual quota.” At the time, I felt pleased with myself, but then I started thinking. However, instead of thinking, if I had already earned more than what was expected or needed, why couldn’t I take off the rest of the year and travel, write a book, sleep in … no, the thoughts went to, I can do more work and then once or twice a year take a week off to recover from all the hard work. If I can accomplish more in ¼ of the time it takes some people to accomplish, and if I am satisfied with those earnings, why not take off? But that old Puritanical work ethic thing keeps getting in the way of taking time in life to enjoy, well … life.

I think the big question here is: Is there a real reason you, specifically, need to be working in a structured environment with set days and hours? I emphasize the word “real” because for those who have “made it”, they don’t seem to view ‘work’ the way most of us do.

"Perfection is not when there is more to add, but no more to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)

One simple strategy to achieve what you want

What if I told you that you could accomplish anything you wanted? Would you believe me?

OK, here’s a challenge for you: Think of something you want to accomplish. For the next five minutes, think of all the ways you can accomplish it and write them down. Not a single solution is off-limits.

For example, say you want a different career. Start by writing:

1. Research what it takes to have that career.
2. Assess current skills and knowledge to determine if a starting point already exists.
3. If so, re-write resume to reflect skills and knowledge to pursue that career.
4. If there are no required skills and knowledge, acquire necessary education.
5. Research schools or programs to get that education.
6. Ask people who already have that career what they did to achieve it.
7. Peruse job listings in that field.
8. Hire a coach to keep you focused on your goal.
9. Apply for jobs in that field.
10. Ask an organization to allow you to spend a “day-in-the-life” in that career.
11. Get up 30 minutes earlier each day to spend time researching.
12. Become an intern in the desired field.
13. Email everyone you know and ask for advice on how to get where you want to go.

I admit I only spent 3 minutes coming up with these action items but even at that, I came up with 13 ways to start moving in the direction of obtaining a new career. And none of them appear impossible to do, do they? Notice, too, there isn’t a single obstacle. This is a major point and I will let you in on a little but incredibly powerful secret as to why not a single roadblock was introduced in this list:

Your mind cannot hold opposing thoughts at the same time.

If you’re busy focusing on how to accomplish something, you cannot simultaneously be focusing on how not to accomplish something. Put another way, if I am thinking about how to prepare chicken for dinner, I cannot, at the same time, be thinking of how to barbeque ribs. Therein lies the difference between people who get what they want and those who do not. They simply program their minds to think of solutions instead of obstacles.

Now, go write your list.

Is a ‘safe’ career choice preventing your miracles?

These tumultuous times have everyone on edge. High unemployment, companies having to restrict their growth, and fewer opportunities may have a career seeker looking for safe passage to their retirement. That job offer that comes along in the nick of time may convince us we are making the right choice because, quite frankly, it is the only choice at that moment. Hey, we’ve all gotta’ eat and sometimes have to do what we have to but making a habit of choosing careers based solely on being ‘safe’ means you could miss out on the real miracles.

This point was driven home again last night after catching the last 30 minutes of Spike Lee’s 2008 movie, Miracle at St. Anna. I’ve seen the movie before but am always moved by one line that occurs toward the very end and wait for it every time. And here it is:

“Safety is the greatest risk of all, because safety leaves no room for miracles and miracles are the only sure thing in life.”

What could I possibly add to this?

Get prospective employers to see what you’re all about in one click

Half the battle in finding the right employer is cutting through the clutter of other job candidates so hiring companies can see what makes you so darn amazing.

But first you must understand human nature. You know those emails your friends and colleagues send you with a link to a funny video, joke, or something altogether different? The first thing most of us do is -- click on the link. Why? Well, for a few reasons but mostly because we’re curious about what is behind the “curtain”. Want to see for yourself? Then CLICK HERE SO I CAN PROVE IT.

For those of you who were not all that curious or concerned where the link leads, I will just go ahead and make my point. After reading what follows here you’ll be hitting that link in no time.

Consider you are the perfect candidate for a job. You send an email to the hiring company and attach your resume and write something powerful in the text area of the email to compel the hiring manager/human resources to go one step further and open your resume file. They’re busy, distracted, or annoyed they have to go through this process in the first place and are getting pretty tired of reading resumes. How do you spark their interest to read about you?

Imagine that you embed a link, like the one I encouraged you to click on, in your opening line, inviting the recipient to view your profile where, not so coincidentally, your resume is also parked for viewing (at some point you will have to have one of these things). Do candidates get any savvier than you? But more importantly, LinkedIn allows you to showcase what makes you special right from the start.

How do you do it? First thing is to set-up a LinkedIn account. Complete the profile, write about the amazing things you have accomplished, who you’ve worked for in the past, how well-educated you are, and, basically, take advantage of all that LinkedIn has to offer. Now, to get to your personal web link, on your ‘Profile’ page you are assigned a “public URL”. That’s the web address to your personal profile. Copy that URL into a Word document. For example, type: www.linkedin.com. Right click on the link and then select ‘Edit Hyperlink’. At the top of the pop-up box, it says: ‘Text to display’. Type in whatever you want. So, www.linkedin.com becomes LinkedIn.

Why you should do this or the problem with resumes.

It’s funny how there are professional resume writers – as a bona fide profession, where skill, talent, and know-how is required – yet the majority of us think we are adept at writing our own resumes without any of the training or skills possessed by, you guessed it, professional resume writers. And that would be OK and perfectly sensible to accept the premise that you may not be the most appropriate person to write your resume except, and here is the problem, many prospective employers expect you to be or, at the minimum, will evaluate you on the quality of your resume when your special skill set may be capping bottles, selling airplanes, or paving driveways. However, having a LinkedIn profile gives you the opportunity to tell someone right upfront that you are the Midwest’s 2009 bottle capping champion or are the person responsible for having sold all of Boeing’s 747 inventory without them even thinking about how well you can write a resume. You can even put your smiling face right there at the top.

Does it get any better or easier than that?

1 simple thought that will change your life

Something strange happened on the way to giving a motivational talk. I was back in my hometown of Southern California and getting ready to deliver a talk to a group of de-motivated salespeople. Their company had suffered some bad press and the sales staff was, to say the least, devastated. And it showed in their performance.

So, there I was, in my hotel room, with the television on in the background as I went over the talk in my head. Something on TV caught my attention. It was a commercial for the annual fair at the Pomona, California fairgrounds. As a kid in elementary school, at the start of each school year, the children were given a free ticket to the fair. Listening to the commercial took me back to that time and I recalled how I couldn't contain my excitement. It then struck me how, from just the mere mention of the fair, my body was actually responding as though I was, once again, 7 or 8 years old and anticipating going to the fair.

By the time I got to where I was delivering the talk, I realized I needed to take a different approach other than what I had originally planned. I began the talk by asking everyone to close their eyes and recall the first time they had fallen in love; be it with another person, puppy, or goldfish. For the following few minutes, the faces of the people in the audience began to soften and lighten. Some even smiled. The point of the exercise was to demonstrate that their minds could not tell the difference between something that happened at another time or the present moment. Their entire physiology changed just at the thought of something wonderful.

This can go another way as well. Think of when something terrible happened and it will be as though you are experiencing that all over again.

We all have memories of when we were completely brilliant, such as writing a flawless report, giving an inspiring presentation, or making something with our own two hands that was sheer perfection. Admittedly, for some (a lot?) of us, these moments may be few and far between. I think what happens though, especially when we are uncertain about what we want or feel there is strong competition, we conjure those memories from the past where things did not go well. This is a real problem because then your mind and body will start mimicking the past. The body language, the searching for the right words, the mind-freeze, or whatever else that took place that made things turn out not so great reemerges.

If you had the choice, and you do, to cement in your mind those moments where everything you did as though they had been written in the stars or the times when you struggled, stumbled, or even fell, as a way to produce the feelings you need to take hold of your career or do your best work, is there any reason to choose the latter?

The following year after that talk in So Cal, I ran into one of the people who had been in attendance. She told me that prior to the session, she had perceived that prospective customers were aware of the troubles of her company. Her sales presentations had been full of apologies and offering things she wouldn’t ordinarily give away just to get the sale but even that wasn’t working. After the talk, she realized she was projecting insecurity to prospects that she felt as a result of the company’s rather public troubles. She learned that in the majority of cases, many prospects weren’t even aware of the company troubles. She told me that applying what I taught her had changed her life.

Though that particular company's sales staff was contending with real some hurdles, it is not unlike what many people go through on a regular basis. We tell ourselves we can’t possibly get the career we want because we don’t have enough education, the right skill set, connections, too old, too young, too experienced, not enough experience, it’s too hard … a million things that chatter on endlessly in our heads but – and this is a biggie – when you do this, your body, in response, will not disappoint and will put each and every one of your felt emotions on display for the entire world to see.

So, do yourself a favor and choose only the good thoughts.

Just how many lives do you think you have?

A neighbor and her husband are planning on sailing across the Atlantic next year. Her husband had recently made the trip, going first to Bermuda, then the Azores, before docking in Gibraltar. I asked her if she was afraid of being out in the vast Atlantic, all alone, in a, by comparison, tiny catamaran. She replied, “Heck no. I see people die all the time. I want to live.”

My friend and neighbor is a nurse in the oncology department at a local hospital. She does see people die all the time.

It made me wonder about the difference between people who choose their work as though they will always have another shot at doing what they really want to do and people who live life by their own rules, doing work that is completely satisfying. And making certain they do it before they die. Considering a person will work 40 to 55 years of their life, why would someone choose work they didn’t really enjoy? Especially if there is something else they prefer doing or are destined to do.

There are probably numerous answers to this question but the overriding one I believe is: Fear. People are afraid if they don’t take the job offered another won’t come along and they will be destitute. They fear that following their dreams is indulgent and selfish. They fear if they don’t earn a lot of money, whether they like the job or not, others will judge them, their family will suffer, and they will be living in the streets in their old age. They fear their calling is the wrong calling. Regardless, it boils down to the same thing: They are afraid of what could happen if not taking the “safe” route. Personally, I am more afraid of dying and not doing the work I was intended to do.

Even if you can get past these fears, you may be wondering where to start. This insightful article, Career Assessment: Finding Satisfying Work is a great guide. According to the article, key to alignment is:

1. Discover what you are designed to do.
2. Do it.
3. Minimize everything else.

I don’t believe the issue so much is that we don’t know what we’re designed to do but that we enlarge everything else in our lives so that our purpose becomes inconsequential or worse, forgotten. I recall a friend from high school who had the most beautiful singing voice. Her performance in the school’s version of Fiddler on the Roof made me gasp at its perfection. Today, I understand she is a hospital administrator. Great job, no doubt, but I am saddened to think what the world has lost in not being able to hear her sing.