I recently came across this intriguing book, 365 Thank Yous, by John Kralik.
His is a heartwarming story of how sincere gratitude can put a new, healthier perspective on what life brings… and on what we can bring to life.
I’ve browsed the site and read some Amazon reviews.
And while I don’t yet feel drawn to do exactly what he did, I also heard an unrelated interview with a marketing coach today who described how he sends individual thank you cards to every person who downloads his free reports and leaves a mailing address.
He doesn’t include any business card, or try to soft sell information for his products and services with the thank you note.
And yet he claims a significant number of these folks subsequently hire him. Some even send thank you cards thanking him for his! Go figure…
In a world where the news often concentrates on business cheats and sneaks, I think this coach’s approach works because he combines opportunity with sincerity in a way that doesn’t threaten people, and lets them make their own minds up.
I’ll consider adding this to my freelance writing business marketing plan this year and see what happens.
There’s a lot of talk on the ‘Net about ‘getting‘ a job with the help of social media.
That’s a great thing.
However, long before the Interwebbies snuck into many of our waking moments, the process was called (and still is, actually)…. big drumroll here…
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
As wonderful as social media tools may be for connecting, personal brand building, and all the other buzz phrases, the bottom line in these tough times is that you need to impress other person(s) way beyond what a resume, tweets or emails can do by themselves.
You need to consistently demonstrate from a safe distance, because few of us like job stalkers, what you can bring to a hiring company and its customers.
This involves that strange phenomenon of ‘getting to know’ people and generally ‘shining your light’ so the folks with the hiring power can see it.
Here’s a great example of someone (probably mid-career, from my reading) who had major sweat equity invested in a career in insurance, gets laid off, but refuses to settle for second, or even third best.
Her name’s Jacquie.
I’ve never met her but thanks to my new Twitter friend, nicfletch, I now know something of Jacquie’s story after following Nicole’s digital breadcrumbs to the post I’m about to share below.
It’s by her employer, Jacob Tyler, a full service Brand Communications agency.
This is a great example of how the Web has real power to interconnect people, the searchers and the searching, with ideas in multiple ways. But I’ll bet the main reason Jacquie got that job was from the way she put the words together for someone she already knew and liked.
It’s been almost three years since I did this email interview about mid-life career transition with Singapore-based writer, entrepreneur and owner of ‘goal-setting-college’, Ms. Ellesse Chow.
Reading it now, but with the benefit of hindsight, I can see where my optimism about mid-career change (as a coach) was about to collide head-on with severe economic turbulence.
Of course, since then we’ve experienced what the Western media have been calling the ‘Global Financial Crisis’, but in Japan is more often referred to as the ‘Lehman shock’.
As we approach the end of 2010, here are my three ‘rules’ of career change (not set in stone, just based on what 36 months of living and breathing untethered from the corporate teat have taught me.)
Mid-Career Change Rule #1 – S##t Happens
Mid-career change is not a ‘walk in the park.’ Stuff just, well, stuff just happens. That’s life. Be prepared and open to change before you embark on such an adventure.
Mid-Career Change Rule #2 – Know Your Strengths
This is where a good inventory of your skills, experience and interests can be a godsend.
I wrote about Prof Ed Schein’s career anchors approach in Dec 2007. And the advice I received in that report about my career anchors has been, almost uncannily, spot on.
Will this type of research-based and guided self-analysis work for someone just starting out in life and thinking of career change?
It’s very possible.
Back in Xmas 1986, I was preparing to swap my science teaching career for an IT training career with McDonnell Douglas Information Systems.
You can get a sense of that transition story in Ellesse’s interview, and also from my ‘About Mark McClure’ page on this blog.
Anyway, on the last day of School, my class of 16-year olds gave me some ‘goodbye’ presents.
It was very sweet of them and I recall those days fondly – even more so when my daughter and I visited the school in March this year. Walking into a school again almost 24 years later is a very humbling experience, especially when so few of the staff there still knew who I was!
The one present that’s survived all those years is the push’nGo firetruck shown in the picture. For the life of me I can’t remember why they chose that. Perhaps I resembled the driver haha!
Looking at the toy this afternoon, I can see how the driver’s head is cracked, the truck’s paintwork is fading, and one wheel kind of wobbles when the head is pushed down.
But it’s still a toy fire truck.
Admittedly, a somewhat beaten up truck, but recognizably one.
And I, at heart, remain a teacher; using my skills in one way or another.
For example, what’s a career coach?
He or she, in my opinion, is a teacher of the self.
A mirror of possibilities and probabilities that another person can use to teach themselves.
And what about a tech case study writer or white paper writer or personal growth writer? (My current three writing loves.)
The best writers use words to help teach the prospect or customer about solutions to the problems they’re facing. And if I’ve learned anything about copywriting and human nature, it’s that people are most interested in ‘benefits’. They care much less for ‘features’.
So it’s in those three worlds – coaching, teaching and writing – that my days are experienced. Funny how those three attributes have morphed and changed as career companions over the years. I don’t expect them to go away while I still draw breath.
Returning to the question of identifying what ‘career anchors’ a person might discover for themselves from their 20s onwards.
Although I didn’t have the advantage of Ed Schein’s work or of the Internet 25 years ago, I did have my own intuitive feeling about what work engaged me, and what bored me. This is sometimes expressed by career writers with a personal growth bias as, “do what you love“.
It’s also regularly disparaged by people of a more pragmatic persuasion. These people quite rightly see career choices and rewards becoming ever more competitive and uncertain, especially as the ‘globalized economy‘ continues to add hundreds of millions of equally ambitious people into the equation.
Who is right? Well, I believe both are.
And that brings me to express the final rule in this way:
Mid-Career Change Rule #3 – Aim at Doing More of What You Love
Books can (and are) written about this precept to “do what you love.”
It is, of course, easier to say so on a full stomach, under a dry roof, and in a clean bed.
That’s why you have to be careful about following the advice of those who advocate, “Yes, go do what you love. The money will follow.” It aint necessarily so and you would therefore be wise to AIM at doing more of what you love while also taking care of providing daily sustenance for you and yours.
It’s at this point – that of providing daily sustenance – where some people get stuck.
Of course, they dream about how wonderful it would be have a job they both love and get well paid for. But this ‘daily sustenance providing’ is a real drag. And it can be, if your circumstances demand almost all of your time and energy to get to first base. There are no simple answers here.
However, there are questions you can ask that may eventually lead to answers appropriate for you.
Here’s one example of this type of question to finish on, and one which also allows me to introduce a very deep thinker and believer in human happiness – the late (and ex) Father Anthony De Mello.
The question is : “Do you want to be unconditionally happy?”
Let that one simmer on the back burner but be aware, it might take time for you to wake up and answer it.
In the meantime, kindly give your attention to these audio recordings of Dr. De Mello doing his thing at a retreat. I don’t know exactly where or when, but it was many years ago. Whoever made the YouTube videos has added some entrancing Nature shots but those are just a backdrop for the ‘magic’ our good Doctor is working.
In fact, these two clips are almost word for word what is written in his book, “Awareness“, between pages 9 and 15. The first clip is insightful and I often ponder on the contrasts between unconditional selfishness and unconditional selflessness. The second clip is, well, hilarious! Enjoy…
Well, what did you think?
I’d be interested to read any constructive comments.
That question again: “Do you want to be unconditionally happy?”
Try applying it to your ideas on doing more of what you love and see what comes back. Keep a journal or blog about your thinking. That’s partly what I’ve been doing with this blog since Nov 2007…
This is a beautiful piece of music from Handel, performed impeccably by the ‘Chorus Niagara’ in, of all places, the food court of a Canadian shopping mall.
It takes me back to happy days nearly twenty years ago when I’d go to St James’s Church in Piccadilly, London to hear my friend sing with the London Welsh choir.
Although I’m not a follower of any one religion, I find that certain words do have a sense of power and wonder within them when sung/spoken with emotion, love and happiness.
‘Hallelujah’ is one of those words.
Enjoy this performance of Handel’s inspirational genius and remember to occasionally ‘let time go lightly’.
Here’s an excellent article about Harvard psychologist, Ellen Langer, and her lifetime’s research into ‘mindfulness’.
I was impressed by her bestselling book of that name some years ago, and while I’m still often far from mindful, I’m grateful that her words helped stimulate my thinking into the kind of learned behavior that’s so strong it becomes habitual.
Although her original study at the monastery was with elderly people, I suspect the positive ramifications of mindfulness for middle-aged people considering a career change are equally significant.
What I took from her book was to pay more attention to the seemingly inconsequential things and happenings around me. Why? Because it appears there’s a kind of “living placebo” at work within me that I’m not consciously aware of most of the time.
How to start experiencing mindfulness
I found the easiest way was to begin with my breath since I enjoy running and exercise so much. Plus the automatic nature of breathing is fascinating in its own right and its gentle observation encourages a peaceful, easy feeling (as ‘The Eagles’ used to sing.)
From that place of calmness eventually came another voice, one that I feel has my best interests at heart and, as far as I can tell, the highest good of others around me.
On a practical level I find this voice makes allowances for both the work necessary to “put bread on the table” and the vocational aspect of what I truly enjoy doing – in my case, writing, teaching, reading and running.
The Harvard article also mentions Jennifer Aniston’s plans for a film of her life story.
That looks interesting. I didn’t know she had another book, Counterclockwise, out too.
It’s very possible.