“You are daring to imagine a different life!” Thus Birdie (Jean Stapleton) comforts Kathleen (Meg Ryan), who decides to close her store in You’ve Got Mail.

Whether you like the film or not (okay … it’s one of my faves), the words offer a powerful message. One of the things that keep us from change … moving on to new things … is fear. I recently wrote about that particular aspect of career change:

⇒  Career Change Fear: How To Move Past the Fear

⇒  What Is Career Change?

 

But now I’d like to take it to the next level … what career change might feel like for you. And how to prepare yourself for what lies ahead.

How moving toward a different life feels

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If you’re looking for some words to motivate yourself, retired CEO Doug Conant has some great ones that can help motivate anyone. Words he clearly lives by.

I was reading an interview Conant, former CEO of Campbell Soup, once gave to my alumni magazine. After working at Kraft, General Mills and Nabisco, he took on the enormous challenge of shaking things up at Campbell, which was declining in both stature and performance. Conant helped turn the company around.

Even though Campbell had household-name products, when Doug arrived sales had plateaued, and there was no exciting vision to bring the company into the future – or even the present. (You can just imagine how the employees felt!)

But with his help, there was that and much more. It’s an impressive story about the difference truly good leadership skills can make to a company’s success. And it’s a story I think any of us can learn from.

And now we get to his advice

In the interview, Doug was asked what career advice he’d offer recent graduates just starting out. But I think this is great advice for anyone who works for a living, at any point in our careers. [Read more…]

I think everyone has had first-hand experience with fear of failure, at one point in their life or another. Lord knows I face it every time I sit down with a blank page.  But there’s a less obvious fear that’s even scarier and more potentially damaging to your career — it’s the fear of success.

I once took a Learning Annex class led by a psychic healer.  Although I was skeptical about it, I was also curious. So I went. I wanted to ask about my tendinitis, which at the time was quite severe. Severe enough that I had to limit my writing, as well as some computer-related things I did for my job.

What the psychic said

Putting my skepticism aside, when I got my chance for a personal consultation, the healer looked at me and said “You have a fear of success.” I smiled politely, clearly still not a believer. And then I said something about also having a fear of failure. [Read more…]

Do you let failures stop you — or even slow you down? You’re definitely not alone. So many times we let something we failed at keep us from trying again. Or even thinking along the same lines.

Someone I’ll call Theresa thinks of herself as a failure. Yet to me she’s successful in so many ways – career and otherwise. She lives her life based on her own thoughtful and caring values. During her career, she’s worked on issues she cares deeply about. And she always gives of herself as fully as possible. Especially when it comes to helping others.

Ah those pictures we hold in our heads

As I said, Theresa has a very different picture of herself. Because of all the things she hasn’t accomplished in her career. All those things that she feels she could have done better. And all the times she stopped when maybe she “should” have gone on. Because of all that as well as talents she has that she feels she hasn’t fully utilized, she sees herself, at least on some level, as a failure. [Read more…]

Hardly anyone finds their dream job on day one of his or her career. Often it takes many jobs to get to where we really want to go — that oh so elusive goal of happiness at work. Not every job feels like it fits. In fact, some jobs don’t feel like they could ever fit anyone we know! But that doesn’t mean we aren’t getting something from a non-dream job – in addition to a paycheck, of course.

On that thought, I once wrote about Fatima the Spinner on another blog. Fatima spent many years railing against the seemingly heartless universe for all the disasters she had to face and all the different non-dream jobs she had to learn how to do. And she learned them well. But where was HER dream career?

Sounds like a great story for Work To The Wise! 🙂

My own quest for the elusive from that other post:

My life has been like Fatima’s in many ways. She goes from land to land and job to job (in essence) always wondering why she must move on, why she hasn’t found the one place she truly belongs yet. Each time she learns a new skill, but always something happens that causes her to move on. [Read more…]

Wondering how you can put emotional intelligence to work for you? It’s  a phrase we hear thrown around a lot. But what is it? And why should we care?

I first heard the term emotional intelligence linked to work in a coaching class. The teacher assigned us Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Quite honestly, I thought it sounded like so many other “I have the answer for you” type books – none of which ever seem to really have THE answer.

Emotional intelligence in the workplace?

It seemed like an oxymoron to me – especially considering the workplaces I had seen! What exactly did the academic-sounding phrase emotional intelligence have to do with the very real world of work?

But as I began reading, I realized Goleman was talking about mostly common sense ideas — something we need a lot more of at work. Basically, emotional intelligence is about understanding our emotions (and emotions of those around us). And learning to manage the way we handle them, in the workplace as well as in the rest of our lives.

So why does emotional intelligence at work matter? [Read more…]

“Follow your passion. Stay true to yourself. Don’t give advice. Don’t take advice.” Plus, a dash of accidental success. Along with her usual funny take on life, those words are part of what Ellen Degeneres once told Tulane graduates in a commencement address.

And it’s just as inspirational now as then. And maybe even more needed.

Of course, Ellen proceeds to give the graduates her own unique melange of career advice. And she lets us in on some of the things she went through to get where she is. Not an easy journey. Nor one without twists, turns, and obstacles.

Ellen’s accidental success story

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When I was young, women were often told if they want to get ahead they need to act like men. Is this still true? Was it ever true? And what the heck does “acting like a man” really mean?

First of all, I think we all need to be ourselves more than ever. But business can be slow to catch up with the real world. And, as a result, they help perpetuate a model of an unreal world that actually doesn’t serve anyone well — least of all the business. IMHO.

“Pleasantly aggressive.” Eye of the beholder?

As I was finishing grad school many moons ago, I interviewed with an SVP of a major bank. He called me “pleasantly aggressive.” And they made an offer that I accepted. I remember that vividly because much of the time that’s worked pretty well for me.

Although, when pushed up against a wall, I’ve also found that strong direct confrontation with no sign of give, while leaving room for the person to emerge with their dignity, works well too. My way of shooting a moose — but still letting it live.

Is this manlike or womanlike? [Read more…]

If you just got a poor performance review, I feel for you. I know that it’s easy to let that get you down. But whether or not you agree with what you just heard, this is not a time to retreat into hiding. Bad reviews can happen even to the best of us. And you might even find something personally useful as a result.

Unless it’s clear there is no chance of recovery, the best thing you can do after a bad review is to dust yourself off. And commit to start fresh, with a renewed determination to show your current boss that you do have what it takes to succeed. If it works, great. If not, you can use the time to figure out, and lay the groundwork for, some possible next moves.

NOTE: Even if you eventually wind up leaving anyway, just know there’s always a place where we can shine. Please believe that. Meanwhile, it pays to do our best in any circumstance, since that shapes who we are now and into the future. And how we feel about ourselves.

What to do DURING the poor performance review

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If you’re reading this, odds are you have one of those jobs with no future. Or perhaps you know someone who feels like their job has no future. Unfortunately there are far too many of us that feel that way — and way too many jobs that really do cut off professional growth for their employees.

So what can you do if you’re trapped in what feels like a no-win job situation? Well, first let’s take a deeper look at what’s really going on.

Why no promotion or raises?

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Lately I’ve been thinking about just how much of our lives we spend trying to impress someone else — even if we don’t admit it to ourselves. Trying to impress your boss. Your family. Friends. Even total strangers on social media.

So where are YOU in this picture? Is getting the approval of others enough to satisfy your core needs? And if your answer is “yes”, how long do you think that will feel ok? When does approval seeking get in the way of you finding out who you really are?

We begin by trying to impress our parents

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I was speaking with a coaching client who was feeling beaten down by recent job experiences. Having lost her last job, she wasn’t sure how to face a new opportunity to fail again, as she saw it.  So I asked her “What makes you feel fierce?”

Fierce? At work? In interviews? Aren’t we supposed to be the opposite of that? After all, if we aren’t likeable, who wants to work with us? Good questions. Likability certainly is a key asset. But that does not mean being a doormat — or walking around feeling like a deflated balloon.

So what do I mean by “feel fierce”?

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Just recently I heard someone put down a woman’s intelligence because she’s “only a waitress.” And she did it so matter-of-factly. As if the woman must be inferior because of how she makes a living. It’s tough being judged by your job. And unfortunately all too often that’s how the world sees you.

Even people who have known you for a while might be thinking “too bad she never made anything of herself.” Not that they’d tell you that to your face. But people do base their opinions on all kinds of external factors, including job and marital status and, of course, appearance. I call that linear thinking.

Shocking thing a friend once said to me

After the horrible September 11 attacks, I was speaking with a friend. She had lost a cousin who worked in the World Trade Center. “Well, it wasn’t that much of a loss,” my friend told me. “Not only did he have no wife or children, but he was only a low-level accountant.”

I was so shocked I didn’t know how to respond. At the time, I probably just let it go. It wasn’t the first time she came out with an opinion based on generalized labels. But it did get me thinking.

So many people are passed over or dismissed without looking at their real impact on this earth, well beyond mere job title. We affect the world in so many ways, and value is not limited to a few surface labels.

If you’re judged by your job … does it really matter?

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