Category Archives: Addiction

Iceland – Questions For A Foreign IT Professional

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Following on from my post about Ireland’s slowing Celtic tiger economy, today let’s turn to the small nation of Iceland where banking collapse now seems to be triggering increasingly angry protests.

(For an insight into the developing social unrest see this article in Thursday’s UK Guardian newspaper.)

A while back, one of my American friends in Japan relocated to Iceland for a dream IT job with an Icelandic computer games company. He’s still there and, as far as I know, still gainfully employed.

Like me, he’s also an experienced IT professional and I’m thus doubly fascinated (now wearing my career coaching hat) to find out how white collar folks are coping / surviving in Reykjavik.

I’ll be sending him a list of questions and we’ll see which ones he can answer without getting sacked ;-)

If you’ve a question for him please leave a comment below or use my contact form by this weekend.

- Mark McClure

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SUV – Silly Utility Vehicle

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Saturday 1 March: Spring is in the air and I’m walking to my local train station.

Part of me thinks it’s a crying shame to be working on such a glorious day.

Yet there are benefits too:

- I can take a compensation day off during the week.

- No packed commuter trains at 11am Saturday.

My “feeling grateful” for the existence of such options is abruptly broken by the “beep, beep, b-e-e-p!” of an increasingly irate weekend SUV driver trying to turn into the narrow road I’m walking along (from an even narrower side “street”, more like a “lane”.)

His way’s temporarily blocked by a 7-11 convenience store van making a delivery.

The van driver’s straining to push the loaded trolley between van and store, as the SUV nutter gives vent to his frustrations on that stupid h-o-r-n.

I truly wish he’d STFU.

In many parts of Tokyo, roads are really narrow, with footpaths being something of a forgotten after thought. In this case it’s a 1 meter white line painted along the outside of the road.

The delivery trucks often have nowhere off road to park – and there are gazillions of these stores in Tokyo. What fun that job must be.

Anyway, as I nimbly skirted the child high bull-bars attached to the front of the SUV tank(!), I’m struck (pun intended?) by the fact that some people construct lives and careers in like manner.

Traveling along life’s apparently narrow lanes, unable to reverse, yet consumed by unconscious but programmable desires to get somewhere, no matter who or what’s in their way.

B-e-e-p! I want it and I want it now. Get out of my way.

Does it ever occur to these people that there might be another way?

Hey Buddy-san!

How about trading in your gas guzzling monster for something more appropriate to the environment you share with the rest of us?

And while you’re at it, get rid of the bull bars. There are none in overcrowded Tokyo.

Ah! That felt better.

Now that those clouds of annoyance are mostly rained out, I feel the sun starting to shine again.

Forecast? “Set Fair!”

- Mark McClure

(Thanks to that Silly Utility Vehicle driver for the opportunity to have a Short Unexplainable Vent. This too shall pass.

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Giving Up

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Sometimes it’s necessary to give up and let go of ‘stuff’.

I’m not talking about “giving up” on a dream – that’s a subject for a different post.

But just look around you at the amount of clutter in the physical space you call ‘home’.

I spent a few days recently doing just that and came across the following millstones around my neck:

  • Clothes I bought in Guam when I was 10Kg heavier.
  • Books I apparently ought to read.
  • Tapes and Video Cassettes I enjoyed years ago.

Since I’ve no intention of putting that much weight back on again voluntarily, why am I hanging on to these clothes?

So, off the best of them go to a thrift shop.
And the rest are recycled.

Same thing with the books.
There are so many wonderful books I haven’t read, yet I’ve no more space in this apartment to store them.

Fair enough.
Out go a ton of books I enjoyed immensely but will never read again.
As well as some I’ve just lost interest in.

And finally to the audio and video tapes. Much as I enjoyed “The Shawshank Redemption” on video, it’s a long movie and I’ve so many other things I want to do and see and experience.

“Bye, Bye Red. It’s get busy living or get busy dying time for me too. Thanks.”

- Mark McClure

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Is Your Career Escape Pod Burning Up In The Buyosphere?

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As I write this post it’s Tuesday lunchtime Japan time and the World’s stock markets are having another bumpy day – downwards. Anyone with a significant portfolio must be feeling a tad queazy.

And then my thoughts turn to the tech bubble and the Y2K froth of 1999. (Isn’t it amazing how the mind flits around time and space by just association and emotion!)

Midsummer of that year I remember meeting with a number of headhunters in Tokyo -as I’d been downsized due to a takeover by a conglomerate run by Dennis Kozlowski.

I figured I would aim for a job with one of the Foreign Banks in Tokyo because a) they pay well and b) they have big, complex networks and value the technical skills necessary to keep them running.

And if I couldn’t find what I wanted by the turn of the century (lol!), then my family and I would head back to the UK and say sayonara to Japan. (All this assumed that the clocks would keep working and the planes stay airborne after 1/1/2000. How funny it seems now!)

Most of these recruitment guys and gals offered the well intentioned advice that it would be difficult to break into Financial Services IT without industry experience.

Well, I didn’t see it that way since networked bits and bytes behave the same whatever the industry. I decided I would just keep knocking on vaults doors.

And then I knocked on Annie Chang’s office at IT Consulting.
While she didn’t get me a job, she gave me advice which was far more valuable than a paycheck.

I don’t recall the exact words but here is the jist of it:

“Mark, you can certainly get into a bank here. But you might never get out.”

The significance of those words hit me 2 months later when I got the Investment Bank’s offer letter. Base salary up by 30% from previous company, excluding annual (discretionary) bonus. I was feeling giddy working out how much net income I could accrue.

“Do you copy me, Houston?”

Just like Parkinson’s law dictates that work expands to fill the time available, the same wisdom applies to increased disposable income. The temptation to spend it and enjoy the lifestyle can be irresistible in the rarefied air of the buyosphere.

Now far be it from me to tell anyone how to spend their hard earned yen /dollars / euros. And if you came to me for career change coaching I would certainly not be telling you what to do with your cash.

Remember, good coaching doesn’t tell you what to do with your life or career – but it can help shine a light on your present reality and on your potential. Ultimately, it’s still up to you to connect the dots and follow through, with or without a coach.

And that’s how I look at Annie Chang’s words. She made a telling statement about the reality of working inside the unique salary bubble that is Foreign Financial Firms in Japan. I chose to act on those words and saved most all my bonuses and a % of net income. 7 Years of that type of financial prudence (or maybe it’s me Scots roots) go a long way to weakening the yoke of wage slavery and long term debt (aka mortgage). Certainly it’s not the financial independence that comes with ongoing passive income nor the enormous bonuses of front office star traders – but hey, every little helps.

And in a world where NO job, career or salaried role is “permanent”, it is a mind set worth pondering every time your paycheck makes it’s monthly descent through your spending and debts.

- Mark McClure

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Breaking Enjoyable But Distracting Habits – Self-Coaching Tool #1

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There’s a lot to be said for having the personal discipline to do what needs to be done.

Take writing this blog, for example.
It’s a key part of staying in touch with my readers, some of whom are also customers, because it helps to build trust and connections over time.

I don’t have a problem with actually writing material which has a personal development theme to it – seems like a good way to contribute to the world.

So, why not just get on with it then?
Well, in a way, I am – you’re reading this, aren’t you!

The problem is that there’s an enjoyable but distracting habit I want to own up to…
I love reading other people’s personal development blogs!

Shock! Gasp!

In fact, I love it so much that I’ll read my favorite bloggers first thing some mornings. And spend anything from 30 minutes to several hours NOT working on my own business.

“But what’s wrong with that”, you might be saying. Maybe it’s just the online equivalent of a cup of coffee in the morning. The intellectual caffeine of creativity that unlocks his writing muse?

BS!

I chose to create this coaching and mentoring online business because I believe some people really can benefit from what I have to offer.

That means I have a personal obligation to see this through, one way or the other.

And therefore the TOP priority must be to spend the limited amount of creative hours I have each day doing just that.

Anything else is effectively the manifestation of a failure mindset.

Nah, aint gonna go there.

You know what I am going to do?

Use exactly the same self-coaching tool that worked so well when studying for the Cisco CCIE (The “IT certification equivalent of the MBA”, at least in my eyes lol). I failed that baby 3 times before finally getting my number (10814) back in 2002.

What kept me going were 2 things:

  • My self-belief
  • limited public accountability (should I trademark this lol!)

I made sure that a small cadre of other IT managers and colleagues around the world knew of my plan to succeed. Sure, it was no fun sending out the “I failed” email 3 times over a period of 12 months – but let me tell you, email #4 “I passed” was the sweetest digital juice I’ve tasted for many a year!!

Public accountability can work wonders.

So, if we should one day ever meet virtually or in person, go ahead and ask me: “what about those enjoyable but distracting habits, Mark?”

A seemingly unconscious but compassionate and supportive part of me is well aware of this accountability I am consciously choosing to be held to. All I have to do is trust in the power behind the self-coaching tool.

Thanks for your help!

- Mark McClure

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