Attitude and Longitude

The Art of Finding a Career You Love requires a whole-brained, balanced approach

I’m excited about the tele-coaching coaching session that my partner, Jay Markunas, and are teaming up to do together tonight.  The synchronistic way that it’s all come together still amazes me.  It’s got us wondering if we should perhaps offer this as an ongoing monthly program.  We’ll have to see!

This idea, which we’re calling “The Art of Finding a Career You Love,” came to us without us having to wrack our brains very much.  It kind of seized us and said, “Hey, there... listen up.”

When something finds me like this versus when I deliberately go looking for it, I think it’s especially fun to ponder the meaning.  Call it the philosopher in me, call it the spiritual seeker in me, call it the poet/intellectual in me.... but I love to see the connecting points and meanings in events, as well as in the words we use.  Interestingly, this is probably one of the qualities that allows me to be so helpful to others who enage my coaching services.

So yesterday I was wondering why in heck did Jay and I decide to call this coaching program, “The Art of Finding a Job You Love” – specifically, why is it the ART of...?  I mean, we didn’t really think about it – it just came to us as a package deal.  It said, “This is what you’re going to do and this is what it’s called.”  

Some thoughts that occurred to me:

Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, or in other words, each of us has a unique perspective.  What appeals to one person may not appeal to another.  One of my friends thinks Andy Warhol’s “32 Campbell’s Soup Cans” is not art at all – his idea of art (as is most people’s) would be Michelangelo’s work on the Sistine Chapel.  Like our tastes in art, our career choices are uniquely individual.

Art, they say, is a mainly right-brain directed activity, while science is a mainly left-brain directed activity.  Well, I can agree with that, but only up to a point.  I’d say that art and science both require inspiration to achieve leaps forward.  Most would agree that inspiration wouldn’t necessarily be considered a left-brain concept.  Besides the obvious reasoning that you need both hemispheres of the brain to function well at all, one can’t help but to see that art and science require actively engaging the right AND the left sides of the brain.  How else can you explain right-brain originated breakthroughs in science like Kekulé discovering the ring shape of the benzene molecule after dreaming of a snake seizing its own tail?  What about Da Vinci’s left-brained scientific studies of human anatomy and mechanical engineering?

“Art of” and “Love”... right brained.  “Finding” and “Career”... left-brained. 

Interestingly, our tele-coaching session tonight will be about the art of finding a career you love by accessing both brain hemispheres.  When we ask someone to fill out a 14-page worksheet filled with questions designed to pull out information that the right brain knows but the left brain might not be aware of (e.g. questions that access what one is passion about... what one loves to do), this is where the leaps forward begin.  When we ask that person to summarize, analyze the answers to these questions, as well as the results of a DISC assessment, we are taking information that the right brain so graciously provided so the left brain can make sense of it and apply it to the outer world.  This where the leaps forward really kick in!

So my ponderings have led me to see that “The Art of Finding a Career You Love” is really about passion AND research, which is a whole-brained, balanced approach.  That’s fine by me – I adore the balanced approach!

Are you doing the work that was born in you?

No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. 
-James Russell Lowell

A few months ago, a woman at one my workshops was stumped with a series of questions during the group-sharing portion of the module.  The answer to these questions would reveal her childhood gifts and early interests, which would point the way to her work and the way she would do her her work in the world.

As the group continued through the other exercises (our intention was that each attendee walk away with an idea of their personal mission or purpose), this woman, a middle-school administrator, raised her hand.  When I acknowledged her, she excitedly told us that she'd figured out her answer and wanted to share her it.  Her enthusiasm was palpable, so even though we'd moved on to the next module, I encouraged her to tell us about her breakthrough. 

"Well," she began, "when I was a kid, I loved watching the Jerry Lewis Telethon.  You know, Jerry's kids?  Raising money for muscular dystrophy?"  

We all nodded, and she continued, "You asked us to think about what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I couldn't think of anything at first.  Then I remembered how I dreamed of being that little girl who held the basket during the telethon.  I wanted to do it so much that I would go around the neighborhood, getting all my friends together, and we'd have our own Jerry's Kids fundraisers.  I was only 9 at the time, but I see how this is still what I do to this day.  Organizing activities to help kids is still part of my work today!"

It's funny to me now that when I was a teenager, I had a pin button that said, "Work is a 4-letter word." Hey, wearing pin buttons were a fad when I was in high school, what can I say?  Anyway, today I think about that phrase and realize that when we do our work - I mean our real work, the work that was born in us, as James Russell Lowell so wisely points out - it doesn't feel like the 4-letter word my button implied.  Instead if feels like play (a much better 4-letter word!) and fun.  It feels natural, so natural that we are compelled to do the work.  If we deny ourselves the chance to do our work, we become mis-aligned, out of sorts, depressed, unhappy, angry, etc.

So, are you doing the work you love - the work that was born in you? 

It's What We Notice

A few evenings ago, I had the pleasure of listening to an interview with the venerable author of What Color is Your Parachute?, Dick Bolles.

At one point in the interview, Mr. Bolles cited another author, Don Tapscott, who’s written a terrific book called Growing Up Digital.  The phrase he cited from Tapscott’s book was “it’s not what we see, it’s what we notice.”  He was stressing the importance of becoming clear about what we want so that we begin to notice things in our path that help us get what we want.

Mr. Bolles then went on to tell a story about a biologist walking in Times Square with a friend.  The biologist heard a cricket chirping and asked his friend if he could hear it too.  The friend could not, at least not at first.  The friend asked him how he could hear such a thing in a busy, noisy place filled with city sounds.  Without saying a word, the biologist took a handful of coins from his pocket and tossed them onto the sidewalk.  People nearby in the crowd scrambled to grab the coins as they bounced and tinkled on the pavement.  “You notice what you want to notice,” the biologist told his friend.

Taking time to get clear or “doing homework on ourselves,” as Mr. Bolles calls it, is not just important to our personal development, it’s a vital step in getting what we desire.  When we get clear about what to notice, we’ll hear the crickets in Times Square even when no else does.

Job Search Boot Camp on Saturday, August 15, in Austin Texas

If you know anyone who is looking for a job, please send them to the "new" website my partners & I recently launched: http://www.jobsearchbootcamp.net.

The website has information about our live half-day seminar coming up this Saturday in Austin, 8/15.  However, folks outside of Austin can find advice and encouragement too (at least until we can start doing webinars).  I offer a free eBook on the site under the free resources tab. There's also a link to our internet talk radio show through a tab called Boot Camp Show. 

Every Saturday (except this one, of course) we do a live call-in radio show in which we give tips, information and encouragement. The programs are archived as recordings and are downloadable through our host, Blog Talk Radio, and are now also available as free podcasts on iTunes.  Just gotta love technology!

Okay, so about this Saturday's program.  It’s a one-of-a-kind, half-day interactive seminar that won’t be offered again until 2010. Attendees will get advanced job search tactics from three different career experts (including me!) and a 45-page workbook full of great information.  I’m also personally adding in a Special Bonus Gift to our attendees this time:  The Ultimate Job Search Strategy Guide (those who come on Saturday will be the first to receive this new eBook when it’s released).

People really seem to resonate with this seminar we've created.  The press showed up during the first time we gave it in February.  During the break, they interviewed one of our attendees, a computer industry senior manager, who said, "The first 15 minutes of this presentation met my objectives for the whole seminar."  We held the last event in May, and an architect/artist who attended later told me, "It’s the best $129 I’ve spent lately – the program was great.”

When people gain knowledge, they gain confidence.  When their confidence shifts, amazing things happen!  Our goal is to help people go from being job seekers to being job FINDERS!  What we share with them now will help empower them throughout their whole career.

Please help spread the word. Let's get some people shifting - let's get some people empowered!

The Quest for Life’s Work Affirmations

Have you had your Recommended Daily Allowance of affirmations today?  Here you go!

1. I am now willing to see the vision of my life’s work.
2. Whatever fears or blocks may have kept me from seeing my work in the past are now dissolved by my desire to know and be my very best.
3. I am open to receiving the vision of my life’s work easily and with joy.  I now receive it.
4. I am willing to accept this vision and promise to be responsible to and for it.
5. Having seen the vision of my life’s work, I trust that it will continue to reveal itself more fully to me as time goes by.
6. I am confident of my ability to manifest the vision I see.
7. I boldly take each and every step necessary to make this vision manifest.
8. My strongest talents and abilities are now made clear to me.  I accept and embrace them with gratitude.
9. I am happy that I am a unique individual, endowed with unique talents and abilities.  I never spend my precious time and energy comparing my talents with those of others.
10. I like me, and I like being who I am.  I am glad I have the talents I have, and I use them wisely in service to others.
11. Each and every day it becomes more clear to me how I can best apply my talents to my life’s work.
12. The more I focus on my desire to achieve the vision of my life’s works, the more my talents become clear to me and the more effectively I use them.

Source: Zen and the Art of Making a Living by Laurence Boldt 

Making a living and pursuing your dreams

I recently began doing a weekly talk radio show on Blog Talk Radio called the Job Search Boot Camp Show with my partners, Jay Markunas & Michael Kranes.  On last week's program, Jay cited a statistic:  According to a 2008/2009 Employee Satisfaction and Retention Survey, 35% of employees are unsatisfied in their jobs and approximately 65% of employees admitted to passively or actively looking for a new job.

Don’t you think that many people are unsatisfied because they haven’t figured out a way to incorporate what they love doing into their lives?  That’s my theory.  What would happen if people looked at their jobs as a way to make money while remembering that they can still pursue their dreams in other ways?  Wonder how that would affect the survey stats? 

I think that it’s great if you can make a living doing what you love, but if you choose not to, then realize that fact with eyes wide open and find other ways to incorporate doing what you love into your life.  Lest you think this is merely wishful thinking, let me assure you that it truly can be done.  Below are examples of people I personally know who have found ways to do what they enjoy in spite of having very different ways to make a living.

• Relates well to young people and is a terrific mentor.  Works as a realtor, but during basketball season, coaches the JV boys’ team at a small parochial high school.
• Loves helping people move toward the career of their dreams.  Regular job entails information systems at a Fortune 500 company, but leads and facilitates the career networking group at church.
• Loves to play the piano and studied to be a playwright.  Main income is derived from writing resumes, but plays piano for pleasure and earlier this year wrote, produced and starred in a small stage production.
• Enjoys dancing and teaching.  Repairs washers, dryers and other appliances by trade, but teaches ballroom dancing at a studio on the side.
• Is a master woodworker; also loves photography.  Has been in the high tech engineering field for many years, but teaches a class at a local woodworking store and is starting up a side business as a freelance photographer.

When thinking about these people, I want to ask if there is a magic ingredient that makes them different than the rest of us – do they have some kind of special trait in common?  The answer is that, actually, these folks really don’t seem to have that much in common with each other... except for this:  they all have a strong enough drive to get out there and do what they are passionate about, and they all have a can-do versus a can’t-do attitude. 

Choose Your Response - Adaptability, Endurance & Learning

Because of my work as a career transition coach/consultant, I'm pretty much steeped my clients' concern over the economy, fear about the job market and worries about changing work trends.  I know that at the bottom of most of these feelings is the overwhelming sense of having no control over the outcome.  What they do in D.C., Wall Street and around the globe is not something most of us can control.  But there is something we can control... we can choose and, therefore, control our responses to these and other challenging circumstances. 

Choosing the response of adaptability is extremely important when you're in a state of uncertainty.  It's important to dig deep to find that emotional resiliency that lies within and create innovative strategies to move forward.  It is said that adaptability is the key to surviving and thriving during changes in the environment.   The universe (and all that it contains) is always in constant motion, so you might as well chose to adapt.

Another response I recommend choosing is endurance.  As I tell job seekers and career shifters... stay the course for the learning process.  Even if it seems like the course taken is simply another dead end, and even it seems as though a great deal of work/time has been wasted, you’ll gain something because at least you learn what doesn’t work and what does!  In other words, everything happens for a reason, even if you don’t know what the reason is at the time it’s happening.

Speaking of learning, specifically choosing the response of learning is my number one way of dealing with the negative stuff when it comes up.  My philosophy is that when bad things happen, there must be something in it to learn from or apply to the rest of my life’s journey.  Call it a spiritual outlook if you will, but that’s what keeps me going. 

I have learned that in choosing my response to people and circumstances, I can choose to be positive rather than negative.  What about you?  Will you walk around waiting for the sky to fall, or will you take some control over your life by controlling your responses to the changes and the challenges?  I know from experience that when you take control of your responses, you take control of at least one outcome... whether you're going to have a smile on your face or worry lines on your forehead! 

Giving yourself a reality check... is your job really too stinky?

I really love this post, Adjusting Your Attitude, by my acquaintance and fellow Launch Pad Job Club member, Jim Adcock.  In it he talks about working in his stepfather's construction business as a teenager and how it shaped his attitude for his career later.  

"...once in a while, the job was to remove a leaking system and replace it with a new one. Now that was a stinky job. So much so, in fact, that my attitude has been this ever since: once you have been ankle deep in someone else’s feces, no job is too stinky to deal with."

Later he adds:  "So take a moment to assess your own attitude.  Where are you seeing negatives when you could be seeing positives?  Is your job (or potential job) really stinkier than what I did, or could you see yourself as lucky not to be standing in a septic tank?"

Talk about giving yourself a reality check!

Career Empowerment Discussion on Co-Creator Radio Network

Mary Adams of Co-Creator Radio Network and I spoke yesterday on her hour-long internet radio show, Let the Day Begin.  We had a great, uplifting discussion about career empowerment. 

If you'd like to hear the mp3 recording, click Download 2009-04-10_Co-Creator Network Interview or click here to listen directly to the show on the Let the Day Begin archives at their website.

Wishing you all an empowered path!

Job Search Boot Camp

On Saturday morning, February 28th, I'll be delivering a unique seminar with my partners, Jay Markunas and Michael Kranes.  Sure, we'll touch on the basics of job search, but that isn't what makes this seminar unique.  What's different about this one is that we are making certain advanced pieces of the job search accessible to everyone.  It'll be a sort of graduate course, if you will, on job search.  But everyone will be able to understand and apply it to themselves.

What's more, we found a way to brings a cohesiveness that might not otherwise be there when you have three different experts giving out information.  During one of our brainstorming sessions, we hit on a wonderfully realistic way to help our audience... with a case study on how a real person will apply our advice and expertise.  And we do this across all the parts of the job search.  Michael will show how to make our subject's resume more brilliant.  I will show how she will conduct a sophisticated and strategic job search plan.  Jay will demonstrate the answers she'll use to answer tough questions about her particular situation (which is as a career changer) and negotiate her salary.        

We decided early on that we want this experience to be highly impactful for attendees.  We want a shift to happen right there on the spot - a shift in which the light bulb goes on and they see doors flying open on their path.

And why not have this sort of expectation?  After all, this seminar was a gift given to Jay's brain in a moment of divinely-inspired brilliance.  I asked him why he wanted to call it a boot camp.  He said that he thinks people need something intense and immediate - they are languishing enough in this economy and need help now.  A boot camp is where you get trained quickly and effectively so that you can perform your tasks right away.  Made sense to me so I said, "Yes, let the ride begin!"

After I signed on, Jay urged me to come see Michael speak at a career networking meeting that he facilitates at his church.  At the time he hadn't met Michael and had no idea if Michael was meant to be the third spoke in this wheel.  "If he can't speak very well, I'll give you a thumbs down, and we'll look for someone else," Jay told me in his well grounded, tell-it-like-it-is kinda way.  Well, of course, Michael not only speaks well, but he delivered a down-to-earth presentationabout resumes with high-quality information that evening.  Best of all, I found myself silently saying plenty amens because, in my opinion, he gets it.  No wonder he has won awards for his work! 

What a great project this has been!  And what a blessing my partners are!  We've been out and about giving some mini-version presentations of the material around town - it's being received well, and I believe we're doing a lot of good for people.  Really looking forward to the big event on February 28th.  www.jobsearchbootcamp.net.

 

Bliss, gratitude, a cup of mocha latte and another attitude shift

Last Friday morning I arrived cheerfully at a “new” coffee shop... I’d not been to this shop before and had arranged to meet a business colleague there.  I arrived early, before my colleague, found a great parking space waiting for me right in front, and walked into the bright, colorful interior full of anticipation.  This was going to be a creative meeting of the minds and hearts, as well as a new java experience.  A feast for the senses... yummy!

I approached the counter, looking up at the display board with all those wonderful choices of flavors and coffee concoctions.  In front of me, a lady wearing a bright green jacket picked up and immediately dropped her thermal cup.  She must have grabbed it by the top because she muttered out loud, “Damn, I guess I hadn’t closed it all the way.” 

Her full cup had hit the hard ground, splashing its hot contents on the floor, on the side of the counter, and on me.  As the barista who was working the cash register scrambled to get the mop, I grabbed a paper napkin to blot off my pants and boots.  The lady in bright green who’d spilled the coffee suddenly went from self-annoyed and apologetic toward the barista to sounding horrified as she noticed I was wiping my pant leg, “Did I splash you too?”  Apologizing some more, she retrieved her thermos from the floor, and a second barista worked on fixing her a fresh cup to go.  The lady in bright green angled her head in my direction and said to the barista who’d returned to the register, “I’m buying whatever she is having.” 

“No, no,” I said.  “You don’t have to do that.  Look my pants and boots are brown – it won’t even show.” 

“I insist.  It’ll help be balance out my karma.” 

I looked at her.  She was not just being polite.  She looked back at me expectantly, earnestly.  “Okay, I’ll accept.  But I’ve never been here before so what do you recommend?” 

The barista chimed in at that point, “Our lattes are really good.”  So I ordered up a cup of mocha latte.  The lady in bright green apologized again, handing over her credit card to the barista.  I told her, “Oh, don’t worry about it.  I’ll smell good all day since I’ll smell like coffee.” 

She smiled.  We introduced ourselves to each other.  She went her own way, and I found my way through the crowded shop to a table so I could wait for my order and my business colleague.  When it was ready, it was the most beautiful cup of latte I’d ever had... the barista had taken time to make a surface design with the cream.  It was delicious, too.  I couldn’t help reflecting about my own reaction.  During the whole episode, I wasn’t once annoyed.  There was never a moment of friction or agitation.  How weird is that!  Hot coffee on your pant leg and you’re still moving around in a state of bliss, a state of flow.  Instead of being upset, I was grateful... grateful that getting spilled on by a stranger led to that FREE cup of beautiful mocha latte. 

This reminds me of something I read recently about Byon Katie's The Work.  In step three of the process, she suggests that you Turn it Around.  This is the very stuff I've been doing with job seekers.  I just call it The Attitude Shift.  On her website, Byron Katie writes:  "The turnarounds are your prescription for happiness. Live the medicine you have been prescribing for others. The world is waiting for just one person to live it. You're the one."

What do you know?  I'm living the the medicine I've been prescribing for others!

High Five, Mr. Boldt... Vision and Vocation

Isn't it great when you come across validation that you're on the right track?  I mean, you know that you're getting it right because it's just simply working.  But isn't it really fun when you get that one more thing that tells you so?

I've been doing some presentations (and blogging) recently around the concepts of vision and vocation.  Then today, I came across a superb passage in Laurence Boldt's book, How To Find The Work You Love.  This is a book I recently purchased though it was originally published in 1996.

He writes:
Your life's work is the work you were born to do - the most appropriate vehicle through which to express your unique talents and abilities.  More than a job or career, it is your special gift to humanity.  Traditionally, life's work was called vocation, a word which literally means "calling".  The work you love - your calling, or life's work - is your unique and living answer to the question, What am I here to do on this earth?

High five, Mr. Boldt!

Unemployment Rates & Shifting a Couple of Points Over in Perspective

October unemployment figures in the US and in my state, Texas, were released this past Friday.  The numbers shifted a fraction of a percentage point from September's numbers.  Apparently, slightly more people have become unemployed than found jobs during this past month.  The unemployment rates for October 2008 were 6.1% in the U.S. and 5.4% in Texas.  In the city where I live, Austin, the rate was 4.8% (4.7% in September).

In addition to the usual stuff that influences the job market, officials say that Hurricane Ike will continue to skew the numbers in Texas because unemployment claims rose by 300% in the aftermath of the storm.  Citizens of our state are still being affected from when Ike hit the coast on September 13.  My friend’s sister and her husband had to relocate permanently to Dallas after Ike devastated their home in Galveston.  (Talk about chaos caused by turbulent waters... literally!)

I know, I know... I'm all about positive attitude and inspiration, not doom and gloom and fear.  Don’t worry.  Now that I've given you some of the data that’s being reported, I’m going to show you a couple of points of shift in perspective.   

First perspective point to consider is that economists, and I don’t know exactly how they figure this out, say that full employment is defined as 4%-6%.  They say that we will never have 0% unemployment because of changeable market factors and because not everyone who gets captured in the numbers really plans to or wants to become employed.  Anyway, it’s interesting to note that, according to the economists, we are on the tippy top of that scale and so still considered at full employment in the US.  In Texas and Austin, we’re doing much better than the country at-large. 

Recently, I’ve had several conversations with colleagues and clients during which we discuss how fortunate we feel to be living here in Texas.  We could be in Michigan instead, where the unemployment rate for October 2008 was apparently 9.3%! 

One more point of perspective shift.  Guess I’m a “glass is half full” kind of gal, but I’m not the only one!  A former co-worker used to say, “The weather forecast might call for 60% chance of rain today, but that means we have a 40% chance of sunshine, too.”  Looking at it from the other side, 4%-6% unemployment also means that 94%-96% of people are working.  

Do you realize that during The Great Depression, the unemployment rate peaked at just under 25% in 1933?  So, even though our nation’s current 6.1% isn’t a walk in the park, nor is Michigan’s 9.3%, we aren’t even close to the worst it’s ever been!  And, interestingly, the worst it’s ever been is still that the majority of folks had work.

The challenge is not to get caught up in the 4%-6% mentality.  Not to get hung up on the news report that says some number went down from where it was last month.  What can you do today that will move you over into the ranks of the majority?  How can you be the 94%-96%?

And even if you aren’t one of the ones looking for a job right now, are you one of the ones stuck in a scarcity mentality in general?  If so, what can you do today to shift a couple of points over in perspective?  My friend’s sister is shopping for a new wardrobe and her husband is interviewing for a job in Dallas.  The home is gone but not their life and not their purpose here.  Think on that for awhile and see if you don’t start counting your blessings again.

Clarifying Your Gifts - Part III

The third and last of three imagination scenarios I want to share is called Grown-Up Dreams.  In the other scenarios, you dreamed about what your gifts are and what you offer the world.  This time you'll add an action twist.

Scenario III - Grown-Up Dreams: 
You're an adult again.  Welcome back to now!  Actually, we are going to move forward a short time into the future... but only to this evening.  Imagine that you are in front of your television watching the numbers for the lottery coming up on the screen.  The numbers just so happen to match the lottery ticket you bought this morning – you’ve won! 

Fill in the blank: 
If I won the lottery, I would _____.

Now, if you are ready to be daring, let's take some action.  Convert your dreams into reality, change these lottery winning wishes into goals. 

Instead of:
If I won the lottery, I would _____.
Make it:  
My goals are _____. 

A dream is just a dream.
A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.
--Harvey Mackay

Clarifying Your Gifts - Part II

Here is the second of three scenarios I'm giving so you can explore what your gifts are and what you offer the world.  This one is called Student Dreams. 

Scenario II - Student Dreams:  
Last time you did this, you were 9 or 10 years old.  Now fast-forward to when you're older and in middle or junior high school.  You're about 13 years old.

What is your best/favorite subject(s) in school and why? 

Fast-forward some more.  Whether you actually attended college or not, imagine that you are in high school, and you are only just beginning to think about pursuing a higher education as an option when you finish 12th grade.  Now, pretend that there are no pressures.  The school counselor and teachers are encouraging and simply give you ideas without any specific unsolicited advice.  Your parents tell you to pick whatever major you want.  They are happy as long as you are happy and don't have any pre-conditions or dreams about what they'd like you to do.  Let's say that money is no object, the economy will be excellent when you graduate and that companies will be clambering to hire you no matter what your degree is....  

What do you choose to study in college?


If your choice is to NOT to attend college, what do you do instead? 

Clarifying Your Gifts - Part I

You have always known what your gifts are and what you are here to do, but sometimes it's hard to see this in the midst of a busy life.  Sometimes it's hard to see ourselves objectively enough to understand what we really offer the world. 

I'm going to suggest you use one gift I know you do possess, and that is the wonderful gift of your imagination.  With your imagination, answer the questions below.  They are meant to help you find clues and then clarify what your gifts are.  This is the first of 3 scenarios I like explore with people.  This particular one is called Childhood Dreams. 

Scenario I - Childhood Dreams:  
Go back to a time when just about anything is possible - before any defeats are experienced, before any limiting beliefs have crept in.  You’re 9 or 10 years old (or any age you wish to imagine from).

1. What are you attracted to and dream of doing?  In other words, what do you want to be when you grow up?
   
   
2. Now describe the qualities that you value regarding that activity, profession or job: (e.g. My friend, Jeff, gave me the idea for this question.  He said that he wanted to be a priest until he started liking girls and decided celibacy would not be an option! The qualities that he values in priesthood are:  counseling, problem-solving, teaching, serving and helping.  He didn’t grow up to be a priest, but he did turn out to be a fine career counselor!) 

...unite my avocation and my vocation...

Two Tramps In Mud Time
by Robert Frost

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose to my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You'd think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay

And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right--agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

Overcoming Career Challenges

Below are three stories I really enjoy sharing because, to me, they demonstrate the ultimate examples in overcoming challenges to reach career and job search success: 

Know What You Can Do And Persist 
The motion picture screen test report on him read simply: "Can't act.  Slightly bald.  Also dances."  Fred Astaire eventually ended up at RKO Studios, where he and Ginger Rogers made the top musicals of that era.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Astaire)

You’re Never Too Old 
At age 52, Ray Kroc was the exclusive distributor for a company that produced "multi-mixer" milkshake machines. Impressed by a small chain of hamburger restaurants based in San Bernardino, California that used the multi-mixers, Ray acquired franchising rights from the owners, the McDonald brothers. He then founded McDonald's Corporation in 1955. In 1961, he bought out the McDonald brothers for $2.7 million and borrowed at interest rates that eventually made the cost $14 million.   It turned out to be a bargain, as McDonald's grew into the world's largest quick-service restaurant organization. (http://www.answers.com/topic/ray-kroc)

If At First You Don’t Succeed... 
He started a small company called Laugh-O-Grams, which eventually fell bankrupt. With his suitcase and twenty dollars, Walt Disney headed to Hollywood to start anew. (http://www.justdisney.com/walt_disney/biography/w_bio_short.html)

Prosperity & Work Affirmations by Louise Hay

If you haven't heard about it already, Louise Hay, the guru of affirmations and author of the international bestseller You Can Heal Your Life, has made a film based on her book and her decades of work on the topic.  During the film, she is interviewed, documentary style, along with several other experts in the field of mind over matter.  I bought the expanded version and enjoyed every minute of the extra four hours of interviews with Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Ester & Jerry Hicks, Christiane Northrup and Gregg Braden.

One of the fun features of this delightful DVD, also called You Can Heal Your Life, is the Affirmation Toolkit.  You get to select a subject and hear beautiful music, see lovely natural scenery and hear Louise Hay recite affirmations on the chosen subject.  I wrote them down, and I want to share the ones particularly pertaining to "Prosperity" and "Work".  Whether or not you are into using daily affirmations, it certainly can't hurt to read the following positive messages and imagine being in the scenarios described, especially if you are in the midst of the stress of a career transition or a job change.  Enjoy!

Work
I work at a job I truly love.
I work with people I love and who love and respect me.
I express myself creatively through my work, and I earn a good income doing it.

Prosperity
I am blessed beyond my fondest dreams.
I am one with the creative power of the universe and this connection brings me fulfillment and abundance.
I learn from every experience, and everything I touch is a success.

Hyper-identifying With Our Jobs

Work, though essential to life, is not life.  As important as work is to finding our individual meaning, it twists us out of shape if we let it.
- Geoffrey M. Bellman, author of The Consultant's Calling

When our society was largely agrarian, doing a job used to be a whole process.  If you were a furniture maker, you would seek out and harvest a tree; cut, shave and cure the wood; then design, build and paint the product... say, a dinner table.  It was common to simply adopt the trade of your parents and apprentice for years in such a job.

With the advent of the industrial age, your job might have been merely one part of the whole process to produce something – perhaps, your job would be to turn screws into the legs of the table and move it along to someone else to paint it.  You didn’t have to possess expert-level skill.  You could get a job without needing years of apprenticeship under a master furniture maker.

Career options were limited when you lived in the agrarian age, so some would say that life was hard back then.  Others might yearn for the loss of creative ownership during the industrial age.  But what about the age of technology we’ve been enjoying for the past several decades?  We have fast food, fast computers, fast travel, and every bit of information and disinformation we could dream of at our fingertips.  Everything’s been so sped up though, that some would say that life is hard now. 

However, you have an abundance of options for jobs.  Today you can work in a factory supervising a computerized robot as it puts screws into table legs or you can make the whole table yourself with plans you download from the internet along with power and hand tools you purchase down the street at the home improvement superstore, and you can call yourself an artisan.  You can earn a living either way. 

It’s all relative, isn’t it?  There will always be some who say life is hard no matter what.  It’s a matter of perspective.  Whether you are a table-making artisan or a table-making robot supervisor, it’s a job.  However, in our culture, it is the way we tend to identify ourselves and so it becomes our identity.  You don’t think so?  Then imagine this common scene: 

First meeting moment, pressing flesh at a party. 
Then comes, “So, what do you do?” (Translation:  “Who are you?”)
You pause.  Maybe you simply work to pay the bills or maybe you have a job you think is worth doing.  What do you say? 
A)  “I’m a supervisor at XYZ Manufacturing.” 
B)  “I’m a furniture maker.”
C)  “I ponder the existential relationship between man and machine in the pursuit of conscious capitalism.”

“C’mon,” you might say, “that’s foolish.  We exchange such information as a social courtesy - as a way for us to find commonality.  Since most of us have jobs or professions, it’s an obvious mutually-shared experience.”

Well, it’s a good assumption that most of listen to some sort of music – even back in the cave, we were probably tapping out rhythms with sticks on rocks, but we don’t identify ourselves by the music we love.  Honestly though, it would be more fun to say, “Nice to meet you.  My name is Angela. I love the blues – just picked up Jimmie Vaughan’s latest compilation.” rather than, “Nice to meet you.  My name is Angela.  I’m a supervisor at XYZ Manufacturing.”

I believe that if we didn’t hyper-identify with our jobs, we wouldn’t be so unhappy.  One careerbuilder.com survey I read stated that 4 out of 5 U.S. workers do not have their dream jobs and less than ½ say they’re satisfied.  So, the majority of us don’t have dream jobs.  What is a dream job anyway?  Does it mean that I should love my job?  Well, I love my job, but I don’t love my job all the time.  It’s never fun to let someone know they’ve been rejected during the interview process, yet this is part of my job.  Once again, it’s all about perspective, and that perspective is relative, isn’t it?  I mean, what a problem to have!  We enjoy great living standards from the money we earn at these non-dream jobs.  Compared to our pioneering ancestors, we live like royalty, with conveniences and luxuries that would have seemed like a dream to them. 

Unless we’re being abused in the workplace, in which case I advocate tossing the job you have in favor of a new one, why can’t we look at what we’re doing as a way to earn a living and not necessarily as who we really are?  I believe that the vast majority of us are confusing our identifying role when we do this.  If there is one thing we have control over in this world, it is our perspective... our attitude about things. 

So understand this... your job does not define you unless you allow it to.  What your job does is act as a vehicle to bring your divine gifts forth so that you may use them for that which is intended.  No matter where you are and what you are doing, you carry your gifts with you...  Your gifts serve as part of and in reflection of your identity – but your identity is NOT the method of their delivery. 

My advice for immediate happiness and fulfillment?  It’s simple.  Stop identifying so much with the job and turn your focus on figuring out what your gifts are and how to use them in your work.