Angels and Emails

It is an early Sunday morning…the air is brisk and the sky is clear, a perfect day to center oneself at  morning yoga to bring balance to the corporate workweek that is guaranteed to challenge every cell within your being to stay “connected.” The first 40 min of class fly by as the instructor brings the class through one final sun salutation. You take a deep breath in, holding breath longingly with the hope this inner peace will carry you through the week. Chaturanga dandasana to bhujangasana, cobra pose – through to adho mukha svanasana, downward facing dog….who the…what the..hell?!

You pause, stunned in a downward inversion – it is HER. She is inverted on the yoga mat behind you, and even though almost a decade has passed since the daily emotional trauma of calling her ”BOSS,” you can still feel the memories in the pit of your gut. One of the most toxic work environments that you can remember, converting an awesome career opportunity into a daily nightmare of eggshell walking and condescending verbal warfare. It was HER, and only HER, that forced you out of a job and a family-friendly company that you intended to stay with long-term.

Did your BOSS push you “out” – or were they the vehicle purposefully put in your life to help you move “on?”

Everything happens for a reason…even if that reason is beyond your understanding of why a situation is happening. Consider shifting the lens through which you explain every experience, postive and negative, personally and professionally. Think of your BOSS as the catalyst, the universal instrument that redirects the wind to steer your ship towards an opportunity that you may not have otherwise ventured to on your own. The universal law of attraction will always prevail – if there is an opportunity in your future designed for you to experience, life will force you in that direction, at your will or indirectly against it. However,  in the interim, between now and the great opportunity that lies ahead, here are 3 Key Steps to Mitigate the Impact of the Nasty Boss.

 1. Be a testament to your own greatness – Become indifferent to negative feedback, filter through constructive criticism to decipher what can be of benefit to you, and aspire to personal excellence every minute, of every day.

2. Alter the recurring dialogue of your BOSS in your mind - Just as they may be the catalyst for you, consider you may also be an instrument put in their lives for some reason. “Nasty” is a mode of operating in business and management that is learned, often times due to the lack of alternatives in practice and modeling in the current environment. Be the change you want to see in your office, even if you don’t have an example to follow.

3. Pay attention – If your working environment has become intolerable, it’s because YOU have grown beyond the boundaries of your current position. Take advantgage of every opportunity to set intention for the future within the parameters provided by your company (workplace performance criteria, tuition reimbursement programs, job training, etc.) Create a transition plan that incorporates active “connecting” through prayer, meditation, or stillness – and then be patient for the future to shift in the path ahead.

Hibernation…the body is still, the mind is quiet, surrounding life sleeps to bring a brighter sun to the future.

I have been away…taking a break from my destiny to ensure I can sit in a cubicle and stay “connected.” The towers have become so dark, people covered in shadows, meetings so lifeless to add blank complexity to an environment that has no light left to sustain. Why have we forgotten? Where did we put the souls of the people who have sustained our structures for so long? It’s not the structures that are broken, its the people within them that have lost hope. We have traded collaboration for survival,  compassion for nasty…we have become so good at mitigating chaos, we have forgotten how to manifest normal.

We are born into a world of structures – so that we might spend our entire lives learning to live without them.

History has taught us well – we are not to be trusted without boundaries. Government to give us rules to break, corporations to give us ladders to climb, religion/spirituality to give us something/someone to believe in. Without our structures, we are purposeless…so we can, we must  – fix them in order to heal ourselves.

It has been a long 6 months – and thank you all to my clients, readers, and friends that have long awaited an update. Things are moving now…for me, and Angels and Emails…and I am soon to be past the place of no return. Stay tuned -  for change is soon to come…

The Supermarket = Your Career

It began as a trip to the supermarket, and ended a life lesson…

Sun In Control – GIS – Veer.com

There is nothing more frustrating than losing a contact lens, climbing around on the floor in the produce section of the supermarket hoping the herbivore next to you won’t crush your left eye. So you engage the shoppers, and before you know it there is a semi-crowd of 15 looking for a dime size transparent window between you and the drive home. Amongst the lettuce, within tomatoes, on top of the strawberries the crowd leaves no flower unturned. After 25 wasted minutes pass by, the time has come to acknowledge defeat. Pride and humility have now gotten the best of what was supposed to be a quick trip to the supermarket for an array of leafy greens for shrimp stir-fry. You mope to the car, sweat drops gleaming from your forehead from embarrassment. As you stretch your shoulders back to remove your coat, you spot it. The contact, in the crest of your white v-neck cotton blend t-shirt, right beside you the entire time.

Lose one contact – and find yourself head down amongst the crowd, amidst the chaos at your job, “searching…”

RELEASING SOON! The Footprints Forward Program - Clairvoyant Career Workbook – Learn to harness “connection” – the channel through which you tap into your inner strength, inner world, outer world, and higher power to manifest a Clairvoyant Career. This is a structured step-by-step process to guide you through career transition and is guaranteed to shift the lens through which you define career and write a resume.

You don’t consider your compensation standards to be unreasonable, putting 3 good years into a 4 year bachelor’s degree supplemented by serious intentions to complete a PMP certification in the next 2 years.  You are a dedicated, creative, and hard working individual and your online resume is bursting with search engine friendly “descriptors” to maximize recruiter exposure. The past two years have been unpredictable in the mortgage industry however, and you are ready to find a project manager position in the next few months within the $80,000/year income range.

Salary.com can be one of the best places to initiate the personal salary benchmarking process. You are able to input measurable personal data like job description, education, # yrs of experience, # of direct reports – and additionally filter by geographic location, company size, and industry.

Example: For the category search of Project Manager, there are 714 functional job titles to narrow down salary information. A Project Manager 1 located in Minneapolis, MN with 2-5 years of experience and a completed BA degree has a median salary level of $70,446. 

Get out of the escalade mindset, and ground yourself behind the wheel of the pinto – your salary expectations need to be centered in-between.

THE TRUTH 

Juice Images Photography - Veer.com

You missed a call from an unknown number while switching out your laundry, and are now eagerly checking voicemail to see who called. Success. You have a phone interview tomorrow at 9am and as long as you call back immediately to confirm the time slot is available with your schedule. You check – YEP- still unemployed and 100% available. You call the recruiter to confirm timeslot – RING – VOICEMAIL - interview confirmed!  

Then…you realize…you were so excited about the interview, you forgot to figure out the posting for which you applied and the company with which you are interviewing! You relisten to the phone message, too much static. You call back the voicemail of the recruiter, too jumbled. You check the application confirmation emails in the career folder of your email inbox, nothing. Minor detail = big problem.  

THE REALITY

Beware of bad career advice that eases your confidence to rely on charisma, in place of preparation and applicant tracking, to get you through the interview process. If the recruiter asks you one of the most infamous questions during the interview, ”what about this posting or our company made you feel you are a good candidate for this position,” and you have no idea what posting you are interviewing for, there will be nothing but the sounds of chirping crickets to get you through the question. Congratulations, you are a BUSTED job seeker in the headlights. 

 GOOD ADVICE

Identify a method of tracking job applications and use it religiously. Not every employer will send you an email of confirmation once you’ve submitted an application, and even then there often times is not a copy of the posting in the content of the auto response. Whether you use the save job and enter notes function through the job board Indeed.com or settle for something less systematic like an old fashion notepad and pencil, the only sure way to guarantee you are always driving your career, is to stay in the driver’s seat.

LUMA - Veer.com

Closing the blinds you climb back under the covers, close your eyes, and sigh…as if the financial hardship of displacement isn’t hard enough to overcome, the biggest blow is the emotional despair created by 100% available, unscheduled, uninterrupted, TIME. Looking back, it’s amazing to think you never really appreciated the structure that your previous professional position gave to your personal life balance.  And now, with nothing but TIME on your hands, and only so many jobs you can apply for within a 24hr time stretch, you have re-acquired the 60+hrs a week previously allocated to achieving success through strategic objectives, performance benchmarks, and sales quotas.

3 Principles for Embracing the Opportunities of TIME within Unemployment

1. Heal strained personal relationships, and foster new professional networks.  

2. Restablish the bridge between YOU and what/who you believe in. 

3. Reconnect with lost hobbies.

Although your job search will always be a top “To-Do” in the daily list of action items, use the above list to redefine, how you define, SUCCESS in your life. You may just find you reenter the working world with a new found passion for not just what you do, by why and who you do it for.

You, your business, and your dirty underwear are everywhere online. From the resume profile on job search boards to the picture your best friend snapped of you at a boat party last weekend and then shared with her 534 “friends”, who you are and what you do has become everyone’s business.

If you can’t control it, embrace it. Reinvent, reimage, and footprint by marketing online who you are and your “goods” of integrity, skills, and qualifications. Shift the employer market from a provider of jobs, to a mass market consumer of what you are selling. 

You already possess what companies are looking for, but if you have yet to package it properly, no wonder you are still at the bottom of resume Everest.

Schedule a professional headshot and post it to your online profiles. Re-balance the social media pendulum to own what links pop up when an prospective employer Google’s your name.

RTImages - Veer.com

You have been checking your blackberry all day, waiting for the offer that is sure to be headed your way. Although the delay of their response is beyond your explanation, (can it really take three weeks to get the offer approved internally) you are sure to have clarity in the next few days upon the acceptance of a new position within their institution.

But then, it comes. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with us about this opportunity, but after careful consideration, we have decided to pursue another candidate.” Signed, your ex-future employer. 

Huh?! Although the power to answer “yes” or “no” was not in the cards for the series of next-step options, the ball is still in play and in your court. The choice is yours;  

1. The Moper – Life is over, the world hates you, and you are unemployable. You don’t respond, and become toxic in the office for everyone within a 25 sq ft area of your energy. 

2. The Victim – The recruiting process wasn’t fair and the interviewer secretly hated your poly-cotton suit. You choose not to respond via virtual channels, but tell everyone you can about the injustice you’ve experienced. 

3. The Archer – Aimed the arrow, drew the bow, and missed your target. Graciously accept defeat by acknowledging the time committed for those involved and honor that this round was not yours to win.

 If you can not prove that how you respond doesn’t make a difference, than why not consider the possibility it does. 

Weeks 1-7 Who are you? 

 1 Finish the statement “I am…” with 8 adjectives 2 Finish the statement “I feel…” with 4 emotions and/or expressions of sexuality 3 Finish the statement “I do…” with 10 things you are passionate about and/or skilled at 4 Finish the statement “I love…” with 5+ people, animals, or things 5 Finish the statement “I speak…” with words with which you associate your truth6 Finish the statement “I see…” with words you associate with your future 7 Finish the statement “I understand…” with words you associate your religious, spiritual, or quiet place knowledge  

Weeks 8-14 Who do you want to be?

8 Write down the gaps in your foundation and/or areas you feel unsafe 9 Identify 6 actions that make you feel alive and/or give you pleasure10 Establish 6 functional goals to enhance your passions and/or skills 11 Create 6 activities that allow you to share love 12 Identify 3 people in your personal and/or professional life that allow you to speak freely 13 Create 4 long-term goals related to your future and who you want to be 14 Establish 1 weekly activity that brings center to your understandings and beliefs

Weeks 15-21 Become extraordinary, Footprints Forward!)

15“Be grounded!”Do 2 things every day that make you feel safe 16 “Be energized!” Do 1 action every day that fuels your emotional fire 17 “Be extraordinary!” Act on the first step of 2 of your functional goals related to your passions and/or skills 18 “Be loved!” Do 3-6 things this week to share love with those around you 19 “Be authentic!” Have a 30 min conversation each day with 1 person that openly accepts your truth 20 “Be visionary!”Act on 1 step per day that put you 2 steps closer to your future goals 21 “Be wise!” Do the activity that brings you inner peace

… (Week 22 – same as Week 1)

Darren Baker - Veer.com

THE REALITY 

For the first time in years you are eagerly anticipating your annual performance review. You have surpassed all service benchmarks set for you by your boss, and based on the surveys received from your clients, you have acquired and retained some of the most profitable relationships for your organization. Worse case scenario you are expecting a monthly income increase that will undoubtedly cover the car payment on the new vehicle you purchased last weekend.  

Beware of bad career advice that guarantees a job well done = monetary rewards, you may walk out of your annual performance review with nothing more than a pat on the back and a “congratulations, you still have a job.”    

THE TRUTH  

The real truth beneath the smog hovering over the current economy indicates it’s raining cutbacks, snowing displacements, and hailing feel good programs. The conversation between peers and colleagues is no longer “do you like your job” but rather “do you have a job“ to marginalize and benchmark one’s economic status. 

GOOD ADVICE 

A job well done may or may not get you the raise you are expecting, and chances are your boss has little say on the amount of incremental pennies added to your paycheck. Acknowledge that change is inevitable and progress is absolute, and although you jumped the gun on buying a car premature of being able to afford it - things always get better. Eventually, whether in the current job or another, you will be rewarded and recognized for hard work and dedication.  Whether you are a complaining score keeping wagon or sprinting ox coffee pot, find your inspirational point of influence to become the facilitating coach with the reins to enjoy the storm.