Words to Grow Your Career

Some words are more than they appear...

A few years ago I was listening to a friend of mine give a presentation. Joe Takash is a motivational speaker and founder of Victory Consulting. Joe describes himself as a Behavior Strategist. He threw out an acronym that night that stuck with me. “SHE is the Key” he said! “Yes, SHE is the Key to making a great first impression.” SHE is an acronym for Smile, Handshake, Eye contact. When you are nervous meeting people for the first time remember SHE is the Key! I’ll never forget it and when I share this little device with friends and clients (always giving Joe the credit, of course) they always comment on just how cool SHE is, and that it works.

I have SHE is the Key on my whiteboard in my office and some of my colleagues thought that they would have some fun and put some other words on the whiteboard and we started creating acronyms from them. The words were:

• GOLF
• POTS
• EARS
• NOSE
• TOES
• FROG
• LAMP

Out of those we came up with:

Golden Opportunity Looking Forward  or 
Golden Opportunity Leading Forward
Put On The Suit
Enthusiasm + Action + Rapport = Success  or  
Excellent Appearance Reaps Success
Networking Organization Salesmanship Excellence!!!
Totally Open Enthusiasm Sells
Feelings Rock Our Group or 
Foster Relationships & Opportunities Grow!!! 
(You could leap into a Job)
Learn Achieve Master Passion

Looking at the acronyms you quickly realize that they all have a career focus or theme. And a number of our clients told us that they took the messages from the words to heart. For example, one client who doesn’t feel comfortable “dressing up” said that when he saw POTS, he thought it was meant just for him. He put on the suit. He had a great interview because he had his EARS on.

Thanks to my friends and colleagues, without them my job would be much harder and no where as much fun. Blessings to you, Sharon, Ann and Nancy... you're all Gr8!

Passion - Proficiency - Profit

   Career coaches often assess their clients on the Three Ps. Passion, Proficiency and Profit. What do you love doing? What do you excel at? What will the market pay for? Often clients tell me that they’ve been doing something for over twenty years and they don’t have any passion for it. In fact they hate what they do! They do it because it paid the bills. Often they say they would have liked to change jobs, but they had a pair of golden handcuffs – meaning they needed to make a certain salary to pay all the bills. 

The 3Ps

   Changing careers or industries requires some serious investigation. Begin with what is your passion: associated with this is assessing where your talents lie. If you are artistic and have been working in an accounting job that doesn’t allow any artistic expression, what did you do? Maybe you took pottery classes to fulfill your talent. But now you’d like a job that allowed you to express yourself, however, you’ve not seen a lot of job postings citing pottery and clay molding skills; so what do you do? 


   Look at all your talents, strengths and passions, and list them. Then what are all the things you are good at? List your proficiencies. What are all the jobs you can do? List the jobs that will pay you a salary that will meet your fundamental need. If we were to set these lists into a Venn diagram, the intersection of the three would point to your target career.


   Changing careers may require a drop in pay or some additional education or training. But if you’ve recently been let go from your job, it’s a good time to assess all your opportunities. Many clients report that changing careers regardless of the salary was the best thing that ever happened to them. Why? Because the three Ps were aligned in their new career. They loved what they were doing and their salary was enough to meet their needs. Lastly these folks also report a decrease in stress and anxiety at the office and at home. 


   Once you know what you would enjoy doing and know that you’d be good at it... there is another world of jobs and opportunities open to you. 

Transition: What I am becoming? (part 3)

We are talking about transition -- what I called the becoming phase. And remember, people like things to be predictable... so let’s start here.

Job and life transitions are not predictable and therefore stressful. One example, in 1999 a high tech worker looking for a new job found that job in a matter of weeks. In 2002 the time-line went from weeks to months and in many cases over a year. I’ve spoken to clients that said they never saw that coming. The economy shifts like an earthquake; one moment everything is fine, great and the next all hell breaks loose. Sadly, many of these same clients told me that they chose IT as a career because this was never supposed to have happened. Technology was a safe field. I went to work there because there was suppose to be job security. Yet, every industry has a similar story.

So instead of asking yourself what is a safe career, ask yourself, "What do I need to do that will bring happiness?" "Where do my strengths and interests fit best?" For people of faith this is the other kind of vocational question. "What is God calling me to do?" "What can give my life fuller meaning?"

I was talking to a friend who told me that she was a teacher because of the security and the predictable salary increases. She went on to say that she likes teaching but it isn’t not her passion. She knows she makes a difference in the lives of her students, but she does it because she needs to work to bring money into the household, nothing else.

I asked her a question, “What if the government decided to pay women for staying home and raising the best families possible; would you have passion for that?” It may be that, at least one reason she is a teacher is because it is the closest thing there is in the work world to her true passion, motherhood. What is God or the universe, calling you to do? What is your true passion?

Once you learn this answer you'll then have new energy. Notice I am not saying that it makes it easier. But, knowing what you are passionate about and going after a job or role that incorporates that passion will give you energy to do the job search.

Talk to someone about this. If you don't have a coach, get one and work with your coach to identify your strengths and talents and you will see where that takes you.

Transition: What I am becoming? (part 2)

The transition process is a classic Birth – Death – Rebirth cycle (Stepping between worlds) where job loss is the death event. We see job loss as an end. I suggest to my clients that it is a loss and deserves time for grieving. Yet, what follows is the transition to the next thing, a rebirth. The time between is truly hard for people – we are not good at being between things. You’ve come from a state of: “What you were,” moving into a state of, “What you are going to be” This syndrome is not so uncommon. Normally you graduate from 8th grade and you’re going into 9th grade. Then bang! you’re a Freshman in High School and there is no looking back. I suggest that transition is like going from 8th to 9th grade without a three month summer break.

What makes transition such a scary thing? There is no time-line and the next step isn’t a guarantee. Someone may very well say "No" to you. Transition is full of rejection, where your ego can really take a beating.

Job and life transitions are not predictable. Of course you can plan and work the plan but there are far too many variables out of your control. People like things to be predictable, which is one of the reasons people stay in the same job year after year even when they have grown tired of the work… it’s safe and secure but it is also predictable.

I suggest looking at transition as a phase in life, call it: “Your Becoming Phase”… You’re no longer X and you’re not Y yet? You’re becoming – meaning… you’re free to ask yourself “What do I need to do to fit into the world?” Where do my strengths and interests fit best? If money wasn’t an issue what would I do to make the world a better place?

These are great topics to investigate and a coach can really help. In the third part of this discussion we will talk about the bigger questions that you can address in your becoming phase.